The Ghost's Curse
by Mad Vampire Poet
Summary: Drusilla comes to the Hyperion Hotel, begging Spike to help a dead girl. The girl is a killer—but does she deserve a second chance?
1. Chapter One

_**The Ghost's Curse**_

 _Chapter One_

* * *

Meg didn't want to die.

The sound of static reached her ears from the next room and she wanted to scream. She nearly _did_ scream, but no sound came from her open mouth. She wanted to run, get away, but that girl—that _thing_ would just follow her. There'd be no point. She stood on shaking legs and started walking. She meant to walk outside, get some fresh air, maybe try to escape.

Meg's breathing became ragged and heavy. When she had first seen that stupid tape on her old VCR, she'd laughed at it. She'd laughed even when the phone rang. She'd never thought this was real. And that was why she hadn't made a copy until it was too late. By day five, she finally knew it was all real when she'd been seeing things. She'd made a copy then, but no one would watch it. Why would anyone watch a tape that could kill you in a week?

With each step she took, she grew more and more afraid. Her heart pounded inside her chest, almost like it would break out. When she walked inside the living room, the first thing she noticed was the sound of static. The second thing was that the sound was coming from the T.V. The same T.V she had unplugged yesterday, after a dream—or nightmare.

It was that girl who had shown it to her, trying to torment her with glimpses of her fate. But though it was unplugged, it was turned on, sounding static, showing that same picture that had haunted Meg's dreams for days: the well, surrounded by skeletal trees. She turned back, tried to open the door. The handle wouldn't turn. She saw her breath coming in clouds as she exhaled, felt cold sweat oozing from every pore. It was like she was suffocating, even though she was gasping in breath with the desperation of a drowning girl.

"No," she whispered. "Don't let this happen to me. Don't let her kill me."

She didn't even know who she was talking to. A deity, the others in the house, the ghost herself, maybe herself. But if anyone could hear, they gave no sign. On the television screen she saw a hand slowly emerge from the well. The girl inside was climbing. Meg tried to reassure herself that she couldn't possibly harm her from inside a television. That wasn't possible.

But as she came closer to the screen, she felt her blood run cold. As soon as the girl put her arm outside the screen, Meg stumbled back. This wasn't happening. She was dreaming, had to be dreaming. This _wasn't possible._ The girl was crawling out of the television screen. That wasn't possible. She was getting to her feet. It wasn't possible. She was coming closer. It wasn't possible...

As the girl walked jerkily towards Meg, she was paralysed by a feeling of pure terror. She couldn't run now. It was too late. It had been too late since she had seen that video.

* * *

Spike sat sprawled on the staircase, smoking a cigarette. He needed a break from all this. Not just the clearing up, though that was tiring enough. He wasn't sure what he meant. A break from life..? He scoffed at his own absent thought. A break from life. Like that was possible.

"Spike! You're supposed to be helping!"

Spike ignored Angel. Let him cope on his own for a while. Wasn't like the broken things would care. Spike didn't know why he stayed here. Probably just that he had nowhere else to go, since his apartment had been ruined after the battle. Spike had thought about trying to catch up with Buffy for a while, but never had. Maybe he'd been scared, maybe he'd wanted to give her space. He didn't know.

So he'd come here, to the Hyperion Hotel. It didn't look like much right now, the lobby filled with debris and the windows boarded up, but they were working on fixing it up. They were planning to restart Angel Investigations, that private detective agency of Angel's. Him, Angel and Illyria. Wherever Illyria was right now. She should've been helping them. She was probably out beating up some demons. Her way of coping with grief, Spike guessed.

"How long is this going to take? I'm already bloody sick of it." Spike put out the cigarette on the carpet, then stalked down the stairs over to Angel.

Angel didn't reply, or make any indication that he'd heard him.

Spike sighed, and began putting the splintered remains of a table into the skip outside. "Just wish you'd say something. Silence is giving me a headache." They had been silent a lot recently. None of them seemed to have anything to say.

Angel looked over at Spike from his chair. "What exactly do you want me to say? I don't know how long this is going to take, Spike."

"I'll tell you what, it's probably gonna take a while with it being a one-man job. What are you doing to help, exactly? Because I can't be sure, but it looks an awful lot like you're just sitting on your arse."

"I'm thinking," was Angel's only reply.

Spike scoffed. "Thinking. Right. Brooding, more like. Sulking, even, that fits you better."

"And what do you expect me to do? Everyone's dead, Spike. Fred, Wesley, Gunn... They're all dead. We're the only ones left."

"And your point would be? We couldn't have saved them. You know we couldn't. It was too late. So why don't we get all this stuff cleared up so we can start saving the people it's not too late for? Help the helpless, yeah? Like you said. That _is_ what we do, right? 'Sides, we're not dead, right? That's gotta mean something."

Just as Spike finished speaking, the door opened and a girl walked in. She was small and chubby, her eyes wide and tear-filled. "H-hello," she said. "Is this Angel Investigations? My friend said you guys could help me. I don't know if that's really true or not, but I need help and I don't think anyone else will take me seriously. Please, you have to help me."

"Well, this _was_ Angel Investigations," Angel said. "We were gonna start working from here again, but it might be awhile. As you can see, we're actually busy clearing up right now."

"Oh," the girl said, looking down. "So you won't be able to help?"

"Shut up, Angel," Spike said. "We could use a break from all this anyway. If she really needs our help, she's got it. Right?"

"Okay. We'll help her. That's what we do," Angel said. He looked back at the girl. "But you have to explain to us what you need help with."

She sighed. "You'll just think I'm crazy."

"You'd be amazed by what we'd believe," Angel said.

"Okay, so... there's this tape, right? Like a videotape. And if you watch it, you'll die in seven days. It's not supposed to be true, and I didn't think it was, not at first. It was just something we said at school, just to scare each other. But then we—me and my sister—met these people. They share the tape between them. They say it's an experience. They like the adrenaline rush, I guess. They all survived. I don't know why, I don't know what it is they do. But... my little sister Meg watched it. She died a week later. The doctors all said there was nothing wrong with her. Her heart just stopped. But that's not possible..."

"What, that cursed tape? Like the stupid urban legend? Sorry love, but that's a load of rubbish," Spike said.

The girl scowled. "I said you'd think I was crazy."

"Ignore him," Angel said, shooting a glare at Spike. "Is there anything else that might have happened leading up to your sisters death? Anything you can think of?"

"Well, Meg was having a lot of nightmares. She was really scared all the time, like there was something after her. I think she was hallucinating as well. She wouldn't talk to me as much, even though we were normally really close."

"Your last name Samuels?" Spike asked. Angel looked at him curiously.

"Uh, yeah. How do you know that?"

"Newspaper. An article on your little sis. Mentions you as well, actually. Like you said, a fourteen year old girl just dropping dead—not normal. Doesn't say anything about a tape, but why would it? It's only supposed to be an urban legend, like you said. Looks more like they're trying to make out it's some kind of epidemic."

"So you'll help me?" The girl's face was hopeful.

"We'll see what we can do," Angel said. The girl walked out of the building, giving the two vampires a brief glimpse of blinding sunlight.

"So, what do you think? Cursed videotape, or something else?" Spike asked, turning to Angel.

"I'm leaning towards something else, but honestly? I don't know."

* * *

Grace felt like a thief, poking through her sisters room like this. She didn't think she should be looking through a dead girl's things, but it wasn't as if Meg would care. She couldn't care about anything any more.

The mirror on the wall over the bed reflected Grace's own image back at her, pale and wide-eyed. She breathed deeply and tried to slow the pounding of her heart as she looked down at the tape in her hands.

It could have been anything. Hell, it could have been a recording of _Lilo And Stitch_. But Grace knew immediately what it was. It sounded corny and stupid and utterly lame—but she could feel it. Her hands trembled as she pushed the tape into the VCR. Nothing happened. She noticed that the TV had been unplugged, so she plugged it in without giving much of a thought as to why Meg would unplug it. It seemed like an odd thing to do, but didn't really seem worthy of a second thought.

As the tape started, a ring of blue light came up on the screen. Somehow, Grace got the impression that it was being seen from below in a deep, dark place. After that first image, a series of strange pictures showed up on the screen. It wasn't exactly scary. The tape was only a few minutes long. Grace didn't know what to feel now. She certainly didn't feel like she was going to die in seven days. Her phone rang, startling her and, assuming it was one of her friends from a school, she picked it up.

"Seven days," said the voice on the other end. It was unmistakably a child's voice, yet it sent a chill down Grace's spine. Some part of her had still thought that this was completely stupid, that it couldn't be true. But when she heard that voice, cold and emotionless, she knew in some part of herself that this was all true. With that voice, it all sunk in. In exactly seven days, she would be dead.


	2. Chapter Two

**_The Ghost's Curse_**

 _Chapter Two_

* * *

It was two o' clock in the morning and Spike was sitting on the bed in his suite in the Hyperion, sipping warm blood from a mug—unfortunately just pig, no otter, like they'd had at Wolfram and Hart—and staring at the T.V. Wasn't like there was anything else worth doing. He'd researched about that videotape for what felt like hours, though that might have just been his attention span. He'd typed phrase after phrase into the search engine and had come up with absolutely nothing helpful. It was mostly just sites explains the tape as an urban legend. There was one website that seemed promising, but needed a password. Spike tried to guess it a few times, but it didn't work.

He knew he should have gone to that Hellmouth in Cleveland after the Wolfram and Hart idiots tried to kill them all. And succeeded, in the case of Wes and Gunn. Spike sighed. It wouldn't do any good to focus on that. He focused instead on the T.V screen, letting it distract him. He lay back, sipping blood and watching the T.V, barely aware of what he was seeing.

There was a knock on the door.

"Go away! I'm trying to watch the telly!" Spike shouted, without moving. He didn't need to open the door to know who was there. He could already smell Angel outside it.

Angel walked inside anyway; Spike knew he shouldn't have left the door unlocked. "The girl came back. You should go talk to her."

Spike kept watching the screen for another few seconds, then grabbed the remote and turned the T.V off. He got up to leave, but then he realised something.

"It's two o' clock. It's two o' clock in the bloody morning, she ought to be asleep. What the hell's she doing here?"

Angel shrugged. "Beats me. She seemed pretty urgent though. You'd better see what she's here for."

Spike walked downstairs. The girl—Grace—was waiting by the door. She looked a little less scared than she had yesterday, which seemed like a good thing until he caught her scent. The increase in confidence was just for show—inside she was terrified. Her blood was racing through her veins and if Spike hadn't just eaten, it would have made him very hungry.

"What you doing here so late, then? Or should that be early?" he asked, striding towards her. As he drew closer, he saw that her eyes were red and swollen from crying. He hadn't noticed it at first; from afar, with her head tilted so that her hair fell in her face, he could barely see her eyes.

"The tape..." she started. Her voice was quiet, a raspy quality to it.

"What about the bloody tape?"

"I watched it," she said, voice no more than a quavering whisper. "I watched the tape."

"Well, what did you do that for? You think a videotape killed your sister, so you decide it's a great idea to watch it? You're right bleeding insane, aren't you?" Spike shouted. He saw tears welling in her eyes but didn't care. _Someone_ needed to tell her how much of an idiot she was.

"I don't know, okay? I don't know why I watched it, I was being stupid. I regret it now, it was a bad idea..." She let out a few sobs before speaking again. "It was... It was almost like it was calling to me, I guess."

"You're convinced it's real, then? Can't think of a reason you'd be so worked up if you weren't."

"I... I think it is. Real. It doesn't seem possible, it shouldn't be possible, but it must be. I... I got the call." She choked on the last words, barely stopping herself from crying.

"Call that says 'you're going to die in seven days'? That one?"

"That one," she agreed. "But she doesn't actually say you're going to die. All she says is seven days, but I guess the meaning's pretty clear. The weirdest thing is, it's a kid's voice. I mean, is that just for the creep factor, or is there a little girl out there killing people? Because if so, that's a thousand levels of disturbing."

"Could be," Spike said. "More likely than not she's not human at all. You still got the tape?"

"Uh-huh," she said. Her face went pale when she worked why he might be asking. "Don't tell me you're going to watch it."

"Well, that _is_ the plan," Spike said.

"Are you freaking joking? You just called me insane and you're about to do the exact same thing! What, have you got some sort of death wish?"

"We all do," he whispered, too quiet for her to hear. But his words weren't meant for her.

He'd started walking back upstairs, so he didn't see her leave. But he still heard her footsteps, retreating quickly and too-loudly from this room full of echoes.

* * *

Spike heard the doors open down in the lobby and started walking down. Must be the kid. He hadn't waited for her, not thinking she'd be back so soon. She was waiting for him near the doorway again, her hands clasped in front of her. A messenger bag was slung over one of her shoulders and she took out two things from it. One was a videotape and the other was a disk. She passed the disk to Spike.

"Here. I made a copy on a disk, because we didn't have any blank videos. I really don't think you should watch it, but if you still think that's a good idea, then I guess I can't stop you. I'm just saying, this _really_ isn't a good idea."

"Don't worry, love. Already too late for me." Spike was sure she wasn't listening, but if she was, she wouldn't understand what he meant—that he was already dead. This girl was lucky: living right on the doorstep of Wolfram and Hart, only a couple of hours away from a former Hellmouth, and yet she was still innocent of all the things around her. Unless she wasn't, but if she really did know about vampires, demons and magic, then watching the tape made her even stupider than Spike thought she was.

He went back upstairs without saying another word to her. He didn't believe that this was real, not yet. Not even as he watched the tape. Most of it seemed more random than scary, but maybe that was just him, having seen and done so much worse. Or maybe everyone else was just overreacting. The only parts of it that stood out to him as being even slightly disturbing was a bit where he saw something struggling in a black plastic bag and one with a nail being stuck into a fingertip. Everything else just seemed boring. It ended with the same image it had started with—a ring of light. There was no telephone in the room, but Spike had a cell phone in his coat pocket. He took it out. A split second later it started to ring.

"Seven days," came the whisper when he answered it. There was no more after that. As Spike heard the words, he wondered if she could actually kill him, a vampire. The only things that could kill him were decapitation, a stake through the heart and fire. Didn't really fit the M.O. of the victims hearts just stopping.

It was only then, after Spike had already seen the tape, that he wondered why he had watched it. It was stupid. He knew that girl Meg had died. The tape might not have killed her, but _something_ had, and her sister definitely thought it was the tape. And said sister had watched it herself, had come here saying so, and she was completely convinced it was real. Girl was right—he really did have a death wish.

* * *

After that, Spike lay back on the bed and tried to sleep. It was already nearly seven o' clock in the morning and he was getting tired. He dreamed of a dark place, a ring of light in the sky. He dreamed of being trapped. Although when he woke up, he remembered none of it. All he remembered was that voice on the other end of the phone, telling him how long he had left. He hadn't felt much about it at first, but now it was starting to sink in. Seven days. He had seven days before he died. As much as he thought it wasn't true, it scared him, if only slightly. He had no idea what this was, how to save himself—and he had to work it out soon. Or he'd be dead. Deader than he was already, that is. If this girl or whoever it actually was, could actually kill vampires. Since the newspapers only mentioned humans dying, he had absolutely no evidence that she could. But then, why would a vampires death be in the newspaper?

He walked back downstairs to get some blood from the fridge. He was hungry enough that even pig blood seemed appetizing to him. He poured a bag from the fridge into his mug and drank it, but as he was doing so, he noticed a scent. A very familiar scent. He frowned as he turned around.

She was there, just inside the door, blue eyes wide and dark hair escaping from its pins and falling in her face. Her lacy dress was stained with dried blood and torn in places. She looked like she'd been running from something. But it was unmistakably her. Drusilla, his sire, whose face was more familiar to Spike than his own.

"Dru? What are you doing here?" Spike wasn't sure what to think when he saw her. He felt torn between being happy to see her and wanting her gone. It wasn't as if they'd parted on the best of terms.

"Spike. My Spike," Dru whispered as she glided over to him. She reached out to Spike and he didn't pull away, but let her wrap her slender arms around his neck. "You have to help her. You have to help the girl. It's terribly dark where she is and she's ever so afraid."

Spike was confused. Why was Drusilla here? And why was she telling him to help someone? She didn't usually want people to be helped; she wanted them hurt. And yet, here she was, trying to get him to help a girl. He thought about the tape, and about Drusilla coming here now, and he realised that things seemed to be becoming very strange lately.


	3. Chapter Three

**_The Ghost's Curse_**

 _Chapter Three_

* * *

Drusilla sipped blood delicately from a chipped and cracked teacup they'd found. Miss Edith was perched on the table beside her with her own cup, hers of real tea. Miss Edith didn't need blood. Spike sat across from them, hands clasped around his mug of blood as if he meant to warm them, although he was dead and therefore had no need for warmth at all. They'd barely spoken since Drusilla had first arrived, had let themselves revel in the silence. There was so much to be said, yet so little of it was good.

"Who's this girl, then? The one you're telling me to help."

She looked up at him. It was strange, how he still looked the same. Same white hair, same face, even the same coat he had taken from a dead Slayer's body. Yet she knew he wasn't really _her_ Spike. He wasn't Drusilla's any more. He was hers, the Slayer's. Buffy. Drusilla didn't like Buffy. She wanted to kill her for taking her Spike away. She didn't doubt that she could. She'd killed that Kendra, after all. Buffy was stronger, she'd be harder to kill, but she was sure she could do it. Miss Edith certainly thought so.

What was it Spike had said to her again? Oh yes. The girl. He'd asked about the girl.

"I don't know that much. Don't know her name. It's hard to see where she is. But she shows me things."

"But what _do_ you know? I mean, if you don't know her name, then how are we supposed to find her?" Spike asked.

"You'll find her. She'll show you, then you'll see. How much she needs your help. She'd scared, Spike, and she's hurting, more than she ever has. She wants her mummy."

"But… she can't get her?"

Drusilla shook her head. "No can't get anyone. All alone. Makes her angry, makes her hurt people. She did that before as well, before the bad things happened to her, but she never meant to. Never meant to hurt them until they hurt her. But they did hurt her, they killed her, made her suffer. Now everyone will suffer."

"Right." Spike didn't say anything else. Drusilla knew exactly what he was thinking without him saying a thing. How could the help a girl who was already dead? Drusilla would tell, but she didn't know. All she knew was what she was shown and she could never control that. Everything would be easier if she could. A sad smile came to her lips. It was possible, if she'd been able to control her powers right from the start, that she would even be here. That she'd have died of old age a long time ago, with her sisters and her family. As people should.

"So you can't tell me anything about her?"

Drusilla stared at him. "Silly boy, I already told you that. I know nothing, but she needs help. And you can help her." She cocked her head as if only just realising something. "Six days…" she whispered. "Oh, Spike. How could you do that? Were you even thinking?"

Spike looked down, away from her gaze, which was answer enough for her. Drusilla could tell that he hadn't been thinking at all. What had he done it for? Didn't he realise what would happen? No, that couldn't be right, he had to know. But if he did, why had he done such a stupid thing? Why had he watched the tape?

"You have to help her, Spike. If you help her, she might spare you," Drusilla pleaded.

"Spare me?" Spike frowned. "Are you trying to tell me that this girl you want me to help… It's _her_ who made the tape? It's her who's trying to kill everyone? Bloody hell, Dru, what do you want me to help her for?"

"You need to. You need to save her." Drusilla felt water in her eyes trying to escape, but she wasn't going to cry. This was a stupid reason to cry. The girl wasn't really hers, Drusilla just... she wanted her to be happy again. Couldn't say why.

"And what if she can't be saved? She used to be innocent once. But she's not know. These rumours about the tape? They're all over the country. This girl has killed hundreds of people, at least. Might be more. I'm not going to help her. I'm going to help her victims. The ones that are left. I need to stop her. If you can help me with that, that would be great. If not…"

"She can be saved." Drusilla said. "You were. And Angel. You like second chances, don't you? This girl never even got a first chance. But she has a chance now. You can help her, that's what I keep saying. I was hoping for longer than a week, but it's too late now."

Spike looked confused and Drusilla wasn't surprised. This was an unusual thing for her to say. But she really did want to help the girl. She didn't know why. She wasn't usually a good person. She hadn't been for a long time and she didn't care. Trying to be good had only got her tortured and killed. Trying to be bad had got her lots of things. It had got her pretty dresses and jewellery, and Spike. It seemed to her like it was a much better thing to be bad. But she saw things, from that girl's head, things that made her sad. She didn't want the girl to feel bad like that. She wanted her to feel happy, even if she didn't know why.

"Guess you aren't gonna tell me anything else then? All right. I'm going out for a bit now, but I'll be back. You can stay in my room for a bit, if you want, get some rest. I'll tell Angel you're here. Don't worry, I'll kill him if she tries to stake you."

Spike got up from the table, leaving Drusilla alone with Miss Edith. But it wasn't just Miss Edith he had left her with. The girl was here with her, in her mind. The dead girl.

* * *

Spike had left the hotel without really knowing where he was going. A bar maybe. He supposed getting drunk would be a pretty good idea. Might be all he could do to make sense of this situation. He had some money in his pocket, but probably not enough, since it took a lot to get a vampire drunk, especially a vampire as old as Spike. Not that he was all that old—only a hundred and twenty four—but he wasn't exactly newly turned either. Vampires abilities only increased with age, unlike with humans, who degenerated when they grew older. Made sense, since they were different in so many other ways.

He emptied his pocket, took out the crumpled notes. Fifty dollars. Yeah, definitely nowhere near enough money. Seemed like he never had enough. Still, he'd be able to get some more easy enough. Just steal some. He might have a soul now, but that didn't stop him from stealing a few dollars out of a rich bloke's pocket. Only stopped him from hurting or killing them in the process.

He walked slowly down the street. Normally he'd drive, but right now, he wanted to walk. Couldn't really say why, but he just wanted to be outside, away from the stuffy air in the hotel. Not that he needed fresh air. And it wasn't like it was much cooler outside, even at night. Bloody California. Maybe after all this was done with he could go somewhere colder. Like Alaska. Or Finland. Or hell, maybe Siberia - that was definitely far enough from Los Angeles. Maybe he'd go visit the Sunnydale crater on the way. Give the town a proper goodbye. As if it deserved one. That was a laugh.

He passed under a ladder as he was walking, a tall red one, leaning against the wall of the alley. Bad luck, he thought. That was what Dru would have said, had she walked past it. And she would have walked past it, never would have walked under like Spike had done... He frowned. Looked behind him. There was something about that ladder... And it hit him. That ladder, that tall, red ladder, was in the tape. The tape he'd seen that was going to kill him in six days from now.

He started walking again. No. It was nothing. That wasn't the same ladder, it couldn't be the same. It just reminded him of the one from the tape because it was the same colour and size. There was nothing else about it out of the ordinary. Nothing at all. It was _just a ladder._ But there was still something...

He felt like that was the exact same ladder, even if that couldn't make sense. Nothing made sense. He didn't look behind him, didn't let himself see that ladder again. It wouldn't do to linger on it. Even if this was the same, what did that mean? Wasn't like a ladder was going to kill him. This girl who Drusilla had said made the tape, who she wanted him to help... she was messing with his head, making him see things. Oh well. It was his fault this was happening to him, no one else's. But maybe he could blame that girl who'd come to Angel Investigations for help. He wouldn't have seen the tape if she hadn't given it to him. Then again, she wouldn't have given it to him if her sister hadn't seen it. Maybe he'd blame the sister. Some said you shouldn't say bad things about the dead, but what the hell. He was dead himself, that should give him a free pass.

He decided he didn't want to go to a bar. Not that he'd admit it, but Spike felt slightly afraid right now. And when he was afraid, he found it best to channel that fear into violence. He had a stake in his coat pocket - always carried one. He'd go out patrolling. Had been a while since he'd done that. He walked off in a different direction, keeping his senses alert. He was going to forget about that stupid tape, if only for a while, and do some real good, save some people. That was as good a way to spend a night as any.


	4. Chapter Four

**_The Ghost's Curse_**

 _Chapter Four_

* * *

Five days. That was the first thing that came to Spike's mind as he woke. Only five days left to find way to save himself. And only four days to save Grace. He could do it in that time, he was sure of it. Course, it would be a lot easier if he actually knew what he was supposed to be doing. Wasn't like there was a real, tangible threat for him to face, to kill—that was always easier than... whatever was happening now. Saying that, to Spike, killing came easier than most things, he'd been doing it for so long.

He got up and stretched, about to go downstairs, when he heard footsteps outside the door. At first he half hoped it would be Drusilla, but it wasn't. It was Angel. Damn it. Spike really wasn't in the mood to deal with his grand-sire right now. Wasn't really in the mood to be awake, for that matter.

He opened the door. Angel was outside, hand paused in midair as if he'd been about to knock. "What do you want?" Spike growled.

"Just... to talk, you know," Angel said. He looked about as uncomfortable as Spike felt.

Spike raised an eyebrow. "Right. To talk. Because we do that so much normally." They'd never talked to each other that much to start with, but recently they'd talked even less. Might have something to do with everything that had happened. They were both just too depressed to say anything. Illyria wasn't exactly talkative either, but then she never really had been. Not since she'd been... Someone else. "So what's this about then?"

"Maybe we should go talk in the lobby. I don't really want to talk to you in the doorway."

Spike sighed in annoyance, but followed Angel downstairs. There wasn't much else to do, was there? He still wasn't much closer to figuring out this thing about the tape.

"Gonna answer my question then?" Spike asked as they sat down at the same table he'd sat at with Dru.

"It's about Drusilla," Angel said.

Spike narrowed his eyes. "What about her?"

"She can't stay here, Spike. She's too dangerous. She doesn't have a soul."

"So? Harmony doesn't have a soul, you still kept her around all last year. I didn't have a soul until a couple of years ago, I still helped out Buffy and her friends. Well, mostly Buffy."

"Those are terrible comparisons. Harmony betrayed me. You were only helping because you had a chip in your head and you had a crush on Buffy. Drusilla has neither of those last things, and I don't want her to betray me to Wolfram and Hart."

"How do you know Dru doesn't have them?"

Angel frowned. "The Initiative is gone, so they can't put a chip in her head. And while I don't know for certain that she doesn't have a crush on Buffy, I find it highly unlikely. I don't think Buffy's her type. She's too... not evil."

"Yeah, probably true," Spike said, remembering when Dru had dumped him back in Sunnydale after the Acathla thing. Didn't think he was evil enough for her, just because he didn't want the world to end. Well, and because she'd thought he liked Buffy. He had, but not until later. At that time, he still purely wanted to kill her.

"Even if we ignore the fact that she doesn't have a soul... Drusilla's insane. She can't be trusted. She's irrational."

Spike scoffed. "You'd know about that, wouldn't you? Only got yourself to blame, was you who made her that way."

"That's not the point. The point is that we can't have her here. Spike, she kills people. And not just for food."

"She's not going to kill any of us. Well, actually, I guess she might kill you... Kind of hates you for what you did to her, at least she does when you have a soul. Makes sense, I guess. What's the point in blaming someone who can't regret what they did?"

Angel sighed. "Spike, are you even listening? We can't let Drusilla stay here."

"I'm listening. You're just not making sense. If we just turn Dru out, then she'll have completely free rein to kill whoever she wants. We won't be able to do anything to stop her. But here, with two ensouled vamps and Illyria looking after her? She could be harmless."

Angel didn't have to say anything. He looked up and Spike knew then that he hadn't just meant that they couldn't let Dru stay here. He must something worse. Something Spike refused to even consider.

"No. You can't kill her, I won't let you."

"You won't let me? Spike, when exactly was the last time you beat me in a fight?"

"Last year. You know, with the Cup of Perpetual Mountain Dew? I won that fight. I could've killed you. Starting to think I should've done. Of course I could stop you. And if I can't, I'm sure Illyria won't have much of a problem."

"That doesn't even make sense. Why would Illyria want to help Drusilla?"

Spike shrugged. "Maybe she wouldn't. But might be she'd like to fight you. You'd put up a pretty good fight, wouldn't you, and Illyria loves violence. That's possible."

From the look of it Angel still didn't think it was likely. "Do you really think we'd be able to stop Dru? Look, what if we didn't have to kill her? What if we got Willow, or another witch, got them to do that curse..."

"You're not seriously implying that we should give Drusilla back her soul? You're insane! She couldn't handle that. You know she couldn't."

"Then what do you suggest we do?"

Spike looked at Angel. "I don't know," he admitted. "But not that. Anything else."

* * *

Spike leaned back against the wall and lit another cigarette, taking in a deep breath, then watching the smoke wisp into the air. He didn't think seeing a witch would do any good, not after the first two. But he was running out of time. He had to do something fast. He still hadn't even mentioned the tape to Angel. He wasn't going to go running to him for help like some child. He could do this. Anyway, what help could Angel really be? Wasn't like he'd had much experience with cursed videotapes, at least not as far as Spike knew. Could be wrong, of course, but he didn't think that was likely.

He sighed and knocked on the door again. He been waiting here for what felt like hours. He checked the time on his phone. Okay, so it had been ten minutes. Still, that was long enough. If she didn't answer soon, he was just going to waste of time standing here when he could be... somewhere else. Like at home, playing video games with Illyria. Or out hunting with Angel. Actually, hunting on his own sounded preferable. Or maybe drinking.

The door was pulled open right as he reached up to knock on it again.

The young woman standing inside looked tired, with bags under her eyes. He'd heard that she was a pretty powerful witch, but she hardly looked it. She just looked normal. Or normal enough. Messy, shoulder length brown hair. Brown eyes. Worn out jeans she probably should have thrown out. Oddest thing about her might be that she was wearing hiking boots indoors.

"You Freya Rider?" Spike asked.

"Yeah. So, what? What are you doing here?"

"You knew I was coming. I called earlier..."

"You did call. You didn't really explain what you wanted me to do. You said... something about a curse?"

"That's right. The cursed tape. This girl came to us, said she'd watched it—"

Rider laughed out loud. "You're kidding me, right? You know that's not real. It's just some stupid urban legend."

"Exactly what I thought, till I watched it. Now... I'm not so sure." Spike didn't say anything more. He didn't tell the witch about the things he'd been seeing, the things that weren't really there. Didn't tell her about the dreams. About the way he'd felt drawn to the tape, despite knowing that watching it was an utterly stupid idea. Didn't mention the girl, how scared she'd been.

"Okay... Well, I guess that's why you're here, right? To find out it is. I really don't think it's anything. You're probably overreacting or something. That tape thing can't be real. It's a tape. It can't kill people."

"The tape might not be able to kill people. What about the one who made it?"

"Hmm. Good point. So, you think a witch did it? I'm not sure that's possible, but I can try to find out." She walked inside the house, as if expecting Spike to follow. She stopped at the end of the hall and turned back to him, head cocked. "Why are you still out there?"

"Need an invitation, pet," Spike said.

"An invitation? Well, great. Another vampire, huh? All right, you can come in. But if you try to kill me, I'm setting you on fire."

"Fair enough," Spike said as he walked inside the house. The house smelled like pine needles and rain. Every wall had a bookshelf resting against it, each one full of so many books that Spike thought the weight of them might break the shelves. There was an old computer on a desk, taking up most of the space. The rest of the desk was covered with paper, full of messy handwriting in pencil. And of course, there were magic supplies.

Rider went over to the desk and moved aside some of the papers, not seeming to care what order they were in. "So. You got the tape?"

Spike took a disk from his pocket. "Here. This is the same one I watched."

Rider raised an eyebrow. "That's a tape? Huh. You know, I remember videotapes being a little bigger."

"It was. Girl made a copy on disk for me." He passed it to Rider. She looked at it closely, as if studying it.

"I can't feel any magic in it, but... there's definitely something. This isn't just normal, I can tell. I don't know what it is."

"A ghost?"

Rider frowned. "No. I don't think so. That's not quite right. A haunting wouldn't make sense. Ghost's normally stick to one certain place, and I can sense them. This... this doesn't seem like a ghost. But... No. I really don't know. If this is some kind of ghost, they'd have to be pretty damn powerful. But you're right. If this is really a copy of that same tape, it's definitely not an urban legend. This is real. I can sense power here. It's not exactly magic... Magic is more controlled, at least usually. This is just raw power. What exactly was on there?"

Spike shrugged. "A load of random pictures and things. Someone being suffocated, I think. A nail being put through a finger. Oh, and there was this woman who threw herself off a cliff. She was at another part of it, too, brushing her hair in a mirror. Just a load of weird crap, really. Nothing scary about it."

"You said there was a woman. You think she could be behind the tape? " Rider asked.

"No. It's not her. You've heard about the tape, right? You know about the phone call? When you get that call, there's a child on the other end. It's not a grown woman. And that child is in the tape as well. But a kid doesn't really make sense either. Why would a little kid make a videotape that kills you when you watch it?"

"Why would anyone? Kids can be just as bad as anyone else. But you're right, just not in the way you meant. The kind of power someone would need to kill as many people as this has, to make it as widespread… A kid couldn't do that. Hardly anyone is that powerful. I know I'm not. This definitely isn't just a run of the mill haunting, or a witch… this is something else. Something stronger."

* * *

Drusilla was in her room when Spike came to find her. His mind wandered back to what Angel had said. It was true, they had to do something. They couldn't just chase her out; she'd only end up killing people somewhere else. They couldn't give her a soul; she'd go even crazier, if that was possible. And Spike couldn't bear the thought of killing her. The same way he wouldn't kill Buffy, or Dawn. Or Fred. But Fred was gone already. He reminded himself that it wasn't good to think of her like that, not like she was still here. He didn't know why it bothered him so much. He'd liked Fred, but he hadn't known her long, especially not considering he was a vampire. Months shouldn't seem like a very long time for someone like Spike, who was already more than a century old. And yet, they did.

Dru was lying on the bed. The way her limbs were splayed gave her the appearance of someone who had fallen from a great height, except with less blood all over her. The only blood that Spike could see was a few drops that had fallen onto the bodice of her white dress from the china cup she had been drinking from. The cup was now on the floor, the blood inside spilled all over the carpet.

"Dru? You all right, love? Want another drink?"

She slowly turned her head to look at him. "No more. Had enough now..."

Was she actually talking about the blood, or something more? Spike didn't know. Years ago, when they had travelled together, he'd been able to see her emotions so easily, when she'd been such a mystery to others. Now, she was almost as much of a mystery to him.

He didn't know why he'd come here to her. Perhaps it was that it was just so strange to see her again after so long. Maybe he was glad to see her, but he was also afraid. He knew what she was capable of. Knew better than anyone. He still didn't know what she meant in saying that they needed to help a dead girl. She wasn't talking about anyone like Meg, or Grace. It was the one who'd made the tape. She'd said as much.

"You need to show it to someone," Dru said, her voice almost as soft as that child one the phone, who'd told Spike how long he had left.

"Show someone what, Dru?" Spike asked. But of course he knew. "The tape? No. I'm not showing that to anyone. Forget about it."

"But you need to. She told me so."

Spike wondered something. "Dru... Have you seen the tape?"

"No, of course not. I'm not as silly as you were." Drusilla said it like it was the most obvious thing. Maybe it was. She'd been talking about the girl, so she must know who she was. That meant she knew what the tape could do as well.

Spike wanted to say something to her. The only problem was he didn't know what to say. Once he would have known the perfect thing to say to her to make them both feel better, but now his mind seemed blank. He walked over and lay down beside her.


	5. Chapter Five

**_The Ghost's Curse_**

 _Chapter Five_

* * *

It was past sunrise, and Spike was still up. Trying to research the tape, not doing very well. He felt like throwing the computer out the window in rage, but knew that wouldn't achieve anything. So he smashed the glass of blood on the desk instead. That didn't achieve much either, but at least it wasn't counter-productive. A tiny slither of sunlight creeping in through a crack in the blinds caught the glass and made it glitter. Spike didn't care. It wasn't close enough for the light to reflect back at him, so it didn't matter. What mattered was finding a solution to this stupid tape thing. He couldn't even believe how stupid he'd been by watching it. He hadn't even really wanted to. It was like something had been compelling him to do it, completely regardless of what he actually wanted to do…

He sighed. His eyes hurt and he wasn't finding anything. He would have thought that as a vampire, he wouldn't have to deal with such a mundane problem as his eyes aching because he had been staring at a screen for too long, but apparently he did. It was then, when he was just on the verge of giving up again, that he remembered that website he'd needed a password again. While he might not be able to guess it that easily, it was worth trying.

He searched for it and managed to find it after a few minutes. He smiled when he saw it. Above the box for the password, there was a question. _What is the first thing you see?_ Last time he'd looked here, he hadn't known it, but he quickly realised that he now did. Ladder. The night after he'd seen the tape, he'd noticed that red ladder, the same one in the tape. He typed it in, and the password was accepted. He allowed himself a moment of smug satisfaction, but it didn't last long. Once he was onto the site, Spike knew that none of the things he had seen since he'd watched that stupid tape were mere illusion or figments. He knew that because everyone on this place had seen mostly the exact same things.

The website to be something of a gathering place for idiots who wanted to watch a cursed tape for thrills. Hundreds of people had posted about their experiences, sharing them with others. They were mostly either adrenaline junkies of some kind or they thought they were going to find out some big truth about the other side. Bloody idiots, the lot of them. They weren't even slightly sane, but that was probably to be expected, given that they were watching a tape they knew could kill them. What sane person would do that? A lot of these kids – and it _was_ mostly kids – had got the tape from their friends. They'd seen what it had done to said friend, yet they allowed themselves the same fate.

Spike wanted to tear himself away from this insanity, but it was one of those things where he just couldn't look away. He looked at some of the drawings people had posted. They were mostly images from the tape: the ladder, the chair, maggots, a centipede, the dead horses and that little girl in a white dress with hair in her face. He knew her. She'd been backing away from the mirror in the tape. The mirror had moved as she'd done so. It was as if she'd moved it herself, by telekinesis or something. He frowned. Telekinesis. A form of psychic powers. If the girl was psychic, it made a little more sense that she'd found Dru of all people to help her. She'd sensed a power in her similar to her own.

So this was the little girl Dru had been talking about, the one she wanted him to help. The one who'd made a tape that had killed hundreds of people. She didn't seem like much. If she couldn't even see where she was going, how could she kill so many? And why was she so powerful? This wasn't a normal thing for ghost's to be able to do.

Spike could hardly believe he'd finally found something even halfway useful. Yeah, these people were idiots and they were completely nuts. But their experiences could still be useful for Spike. Could help help him work out a way to survive. Anything he could find on here could be useful, couldn't it?

So he stayed on the site. He watched some videos. Saw some weird blog/diary entries. Really, actually started to doubt the sanity of the people on this site. One unusual thing was that almost everyone mentioned the tape they saw was a copy – their friend had made a copy for them, instead of just giving them the same tape. Spike didn't know what the point in that was. It seemed redundant to make another tape when there was already a perfectly good one. That must be why the tape had spread around the country – even the world - so much. If everyone made a copy, there were more of them all the time, and the whole thing was constantly growing. Why were they copying it so much? Why weren't there just a few tapes, being passed around to different people? That way fewer people would have to die, but Spike couldn't believe that these people were so out of touch with reality that they actually wanted to kill all those people.

He found the answer soon, in one of the blog entries. Most of them didn't spell it out, since they seemed to expect people to know anyway. But there was one that did. Someone was panicking that they had no one to watch the tape they'd copied and they thought they would die. Because that was how they got out, how they survived. They had to show it to someone else. No wonder it had spread like a disease – people had to help spread it, unless they wanted to kill themselves. Clever ghost, using its victims to recruit more.

Spike realised then that Grace had already saved herself, without even knowing what she was doing. She'd had to copy the tape so that she could give it to Spike on disk, since he'd thrown out the VCR a little while ago. She was safe. It was only himself he had to worry about now. Well, that was a little bit of relief. Wasn't worth much, but it was something. He'd tell her as soon as she came back; she was bound to at some point. Now all he had to do was find someone willing to watch his tape.

* * *

Drusilla twirled a piece of ribbon around her fingertips, watching it wrap around her like a snake and then unfurl as she pulled on it. If it were a real snake, it would be dead. But it was a ribbon, so there was no life for her to take. All there was, was a dead, blood-red ribbon wrapped around her arm. The ribbon had been in her hair. Miss Edith liked how pretty it looked on her, and how fitting the colour was for a vampire. But Dru had taken it out, because she just liked to play with it. She wondered whether the girl would like a ribbon like this one. It would have looked awfully pretty on her once, when she was still alive. It would have been the perfect shade for her dark hair. But she wasn't alive now. She was dead and rotten, like Drusilla was, but on the outside as well. She'd been down in that well for so long... Someone had to let her out. The chaos in her mind was amazing, a thing of beauty. Drusilla wanted to see her for real, see how brilliant the little dead girl really could be. She was truly magnificent, and her powers were growing all the time. Her rage was so pure, so strong. All those people she'd killed... Drusilla could hear their screams like the most wonderful music. Not to mention the real music. Like a music box, over and over again, it played in the dead girl's head and Drusilla's. A song all of her own.

* * *

When Spike got the phone call, his first thought was of the ghost. But since that didn't make sense, he ignored that instinct and picked the phone up. Would it be the girl, Grace, asking him whether he'd found anything to help her? He almost hoped it was. She needed to know that she was going to be fine.

"Hello?" He said, not even attempting to hide the boredom and frustration in his voice. Spending long hours staring at a computer screen wasn't exactly good for his temperament. Not that his temperament was particularly calm in the first place.

"Hey." It was Rider's voice the the other end. What was the witch calling him for? Had she finally found something? Wasn't like it would do much good now; Spike already knew how to stop him and the girl from dying. But maybe there was something else they could do, to stop this ghost completely. Drusilla had said she needed help; what if she'd meant they could put her to rest or something like that. It was what usually worked for ghosts. They had unfinished business of some sort, or they hadn't quite come to terms with their deaths. After they had, they left. But Spike got the feeling that wouldn't work with this ghost. She wasn't exactly a normal ghost.

"Rider. Wasn't expecting you to call." he said.

"Uh-huh. Who were you expecting then? I'm guessing someone a little more exciting than me, not that that's saying much." It seemed odd for Spike to hear a human voice after being alone for so long. Last year he wouldn't even have been able to stay alone for this long.

"No one really. Just… not you either. What are you calling for?"

"How friendly of you." Rider said. "Just thought I'd give you a bit of a progress report. You know, on what I could find about the tape. It's not much, really. I still can't figure out all that much about it, but it's _some_ kind of ghost. Or maybe not. I mean, the energies and everything almost exactly match a ghost, but there are ways to eliminate the influence of ghost's with magic, and none of them are working at all with this tape… I just can't work out why she's so powerful."

"Got psychic powers." Spike said.

Rider didn't seem to understand him. "Huh? Psychic? You mean she can read minds and stuff?"

"Not exactly. Psychic powers can mean a whole lot of things, reading minds being only one of them. Precognition, telekinesis, all kinds of other things come under it. This kid seems to have a little of all of them. Pretty strong too. That must be how she's been making the tape. And I found out more too. The way most of those who watch it survive is copying and giving it to someone else. They say it's because she wants her story heard or whatever. Call me cynical, but I think it's more likely she just wants to kill as many people as she possibly can."

"Precognition... that's seeing the future, right? You think she can do that? I mean, I know it's possible, but I've never known any Seers in my life."

"I have." He had, and for a very long time. He'd been with Drusilla for most of his un-life. "If she's relying on psychic powers to make the tape, then she'd have to be pretty bloody powerful. And if she's really that strong, there's a good chance that she has a least some foresight. Likely as not it's her weakest power, but I reckon it's there."

Rider remained silent for a minute, for long enough that Spike thought there was something wrong with the phone. "So... you think we can stop this? Or are you just going to save yourself? This ghost has killed hundreds of people at least... why?"

"Because she's angry. She was hurt. Probably died violently. That's what ghosts are like. They get hurt, they die, they take it out on everyone else. This one's just doing it on a larger scale. Usually ghosts would haunt the place of their death. This one just happens to have chosen to haunt a video tape instead."

"It just doesn't make any sense to me. I mean, sure, she's angry that she died. I get that. It makes sense. But why take it out on innocent people who had nothing to do with her death?"

"Are you really sure you even understand what a ghost is?"

"Of course I understand what a ghost is. It's a manifestation of a spirit after a person has died, usually in a violent way. I just mean... ghost's are crazy. And really stupid. I don't understand their logic at all. That's if they really have logic, which I'm not entirely convinced that they do... What was I saying again? Oh yeah. Ghost's. Don't like 'em."

"Got it. So... that progress report you were talking about?"

"Right! I got side-tracked. Sorry about that. Right. Progress report. I actually didn't get all that much from the tape, aside from the whole feeling of great pain and rage, but that's pretty standard. But I think I know who the ghost it."

"What?"

"The ghost. I could be wrong, but I think her name is Samara Morgan. She went missing when she was a child. I haven't really managed to find much, but you can see what you get with that name."

"Samara Morgan." Spike repeated. The name sounded familiar, although he knew he had never heard it before. He knew it was her name. Well, that could be good. A name was much more useful than just searching through newspaper articles. He didn't even know when she'd died. "How did you find that out?" He asked. But Rider didn't reply. She'd already hung up. That was rude. Spike turned back to the computer. While he did want to figure out a bit more about who she was, he really didn't want to stay here any longer. He switched off the computer and left the room, putting his coat on as he left. He felt like he needed a fight. Something to take his anger out a bit.

* * *

Grace didn't want to go to school today. She'd been feeling terrible ever since she'd watched the tape, being scared all the time and jumping at every sound. But recently it had got even worse. It was more than just a feeling now. She was seeing things, all the time. Things from the tape, things from that girl's life. The first few things she'd put down to hallucinations from lack of sleep. It was reasonable, since she hadn't had a full night's sleep since Meg had died. But that wasn't all it was. She'd known for sure when it had continued. She'd been absolutely certain when she'd coughed up that centipede. She shivered at the memory. Grace hated insects. That wasn't even the worst of it. She'd hardly slept for fear of it all invading her dreams. But that didn't help much. If it all really felt like dreams, she wouldn't be as bothered. But none of it did. It all felt so real. Like real things that could actually hurt her, actually kill her. She knew this was a terrible idea. Why had she ever made the decision to watch a tape that she knew had killed her sister, and probably others too, judging by the rumours about it. Everyone knew that it could kill you. So why had Grace ever watched it?

* * *

Damien licked the blood from his mouth as he left the train, savouring the fresh, living taste of it. It had been a long time since he'd had such a good meal. What had that been, twenty people? Something like that. He'd hardly counted before he'd ripped their throats out and drank their blood. After a massacre like this, he wouldn't need to eat for about a week. Fewer kills meant less attention, so going a long time without anything could be useful, if unpleasant. Extra attention was rarely good. That was what he liked about this town. Former Hellmouth a couple hours drive away, a branch of Wolfram and Hart right there in the city… As long as they didn't kill the wrong person, vampires could live in this town without too much notice. But Damien wasn't here for an easy place to hide out in. He had work to do.

He walked quickly through the station and onto the street without anyone seeming to notice him. Why would they? He knew not to get blood on his clothes. That was such a rookie mistake, it would be just laughable if Damien made it now. He might not be that old, but he was hardly just a fledgling. So no one paid him any more attention than they would any other traveller. Who knew what they really thought about him? Who cared? Damien certainly didn't. All he cared about was his goal. To kill the man who'd made him what he was, who'd murdered his sister in cold blood with that crazy girlfriend of his. They called him the Slayer of Slayers, on account of him having killed two Vampire Slayers within the last century. That was no small feat for a vampire, especially not one as young as Spike had been at the time. But Damien knew that wouldn't be a problem. Way he'd heard it, recently Spike had 'gone soft', even going so far as to help fight with the current Slayer. Whatever the cause was, Damien didn't think the challenge would be too great. And so what if he failed? He barely enjoyed life anyway, and it wasn't like there was anyone left to miss him. The vampires who had slaughtered his family made sure of that. He wasn't afraid. He didn't even doubt himself. He was determined to kill Spike, to torture him, make him hurt the way Damien had done. Whatever happened to Damien himself was secondary.

But before he did any of that, Damien had an old friend to see. She could help him do a locator spell , which would be extremely useful. Damien had never got along well with people, even as a human, so asking around in demon bars wasn't a particularly pleasant idea for him. So it was her he'd go to first. He couldn't guarantee she'd help him - she'd never been big on the whole killing people thing. But this was different. Damien felt almost sure he could convince her. He didn't remember exactly where her apartment was, or if she was even in the same place as she had been. He took a phone he'd stolen a while ago and dialled her number, getting it wrong three times before it finally went through.

"Who is this? I don't know this number. Don't call me again."

So nice to hear her voice again. "Hello Freya," Damien said.

"Damien!? What the fuck!?"

* * *

 **Author's note:** I meant to update this a long time ago. Seriously, I actually did. This chapter was actually supposed to be a bit longer, with another scene, but I'm putting that in the next chapter instead. Hey, this is still the longest chapter I've written so far on this fanfic. Thank you to everyone who this story on their favourites or alerts, I appreciate it. I'm almost surprised anyone's read this at all, since it's a bit of a weird crossover. Next chapter will hopefully be up soon, but I'm going to write the next chapters of Samara and Witch and Spike and Dru first. I do know what I want to happen in the next chapter though, so it shouldn't be too hard to write.


	6. Chapter Six

**_The Ghost's Curse_**

 _Chapter Six_

* * *

Samara Morgan. The name rang in his ears on an endless loop. Now that he knew it, it was like Spike couldn't forget it. He saw an image of her in his mind. Small girl in a white dress, her hair hiding her face. He'd been drawing her. Without even realising it, whenever he tried to pick up a pen or a pencil, to jot some note down or even to throw at something, he ended up quickly sketching a picture of her. Who was she really? Other than a pissed off ghost? That was what he was trying to find out.

The first thing he'd done was type her name into the search engine. There wasn't much about her. No newspaper reports of dead children, or even missing children. As if her death had been kept a secret. But he did find some information about her family, mostly her mother. Anna Morgan had lived on a ranch where she had bred horses until an accident when they all killed themselves. In 1978, she had killed herself. That was really the limit of what Spike could find about her.

But he did find out where they had lived. Moesko Island, near Washington. Bloody Washington. Spike really hoped he wouldn't have to go over there for whatever reason; even by plane that would take well over four hours, and a plane wasn't even a good idea, what with having no way to effectively block out sunlight. That was quite irritating. It could have been useful to try to go to the place where the ghost had lived, maybe find out where and how she'd died. That could be very useful for a haunting. But really, Washington? That was just too far away. He wasn't going there unless he needed to.

But he needed to find out more. He couldn't stop now. Could he? A few years ago, he knew, he wouldn't have cared at all. Just a few years ago, he would have let the girl die and he wouldn't have given a thought as to how to stop the tape. In fact, he would have probably been entertained by it. What could be funnier than a bunch of teenagers dying from something they wouldn't have even thought about believing? But he didn't find it funny at all now. Strange what a few short years could do.

But he was going to stop this research on the computer, at least for now. He wasn't coming up with much that was new. He'd learned a little about Anna, but nothing did anything more than mention Samara, and that was who he really wanted to know about. That was the girl who was haunting his mind, the girl who Dru was obsessed with. That was the girl who was going to kill him. Which reminded him - he needed to make a copy of that tape. The problem was, he wasn't entirely comfortable with doing that. It was strange to think that Spike of all people was worried about harming an innocent person, but he knew that if one person watched the tape, then another person would, and then another person, again and again. There seemed to be nothing they could do about this tape killing so many people. What were they going to do, ask the ghost if she could kindly stop murdering people? As if.

He was just thinking that he might check out some places in town, see if anyone had any information on any of this, when he realised the girl was there again. What was she doing here? He guessed she was getting worried. He hadn't get around to telling her that she was safe. Damn. She was so scared. He felt like he should have done something, but he had no idea how to contact her.

"Grace," he said. "I wasn't expecting to see you."

"Have you found anything yet?"

"To help you? Actually, yeah. You're safe now. She's not going to kill you."

"Really? What did you do?"

"Matter of fact, it's not something I did, it's something you did," At Grace's confused expression, he continued. "When you first came here, I told you to copy the tape onto a disk so I could watch it. That's what saved you. You survive by copying the tape. Obviously your sister couldn't get anyone to watch her tape. At least, not until after she'd already died."

"So... I don't need to be scared any more?"

"Not of a videotape." But maybe she should still be scared of the crazy ghost who'd created it? Who even knew what she was capable of? She was definitely something to be afraid of, whether she had that tape or not.

"Well... that's good to hear. But what about you? Have you got someone else to watch it yet?"

"I'm working on it." He wasn't really, but he didn't need to tell her that. He still had some time left. He could still do something about this. He could find a way to survive, even if it did mean dooming others to die. Couldn't he? He wouldn't have even hesitated to make that choice a long time ago, but it was surprising the difference a soul could make. Would he always feel so conflicted? Was this really how humans lived every day of their lives? Sometimes, Spike missed the days when he could just be evil. Before he'd got the soul, before he'd got the chip, before he'd even met the Slayer and her friends. When he had travelled the world with Drusilla by his side, killing everything in his path and not giving a shit about who died. Not feeling any guilt. Those days had been so much simpler.

"Is there something you're waiting for?" he asked Grace.

She blushed. "No. I just... I'll leave now," she said. She still seemed to want to say something, but seemed almost like she lacked the confidence to say it. Of course, she didn't have much confidence anyway. But she had lacked it even more recently, since she had watched the tape. She'd spent too long being afraid, he wondered if she'd be able to get out of the habit. He wondered if he would. She left through the front door. He didn't watch out to make sure she was okay - it was still early, the sun having barely gone down. It might as well be day.

* * *

Rider triple checked that the door to her apartment was locked. She did _not_ want Damien coming in. Of course, locking the door didn't make much difference, since he couldn't enter her house without an invitation, but it made her feel safer somehow. Damn it. What was Damien doing back here? He hadn't come after her. Had he? Come to think of it, the whole stalker thing wasn't totally new to Damien, but he hadn't been here for years. He'd left her alone for so long. Why come back now? He had to have come here for some other reason. It couldn't be for Rider. She groaned. She really, really didn't want to see him. Ever again. Sure, she'd got stronger since he'd left, maybe a little more capable. She'd taken on vampires and won. But every time she saw Damien she felt like a teenager again, scared, alone and confused. She didn't remember why she'd even liked him. She probably hadn't liked him really, just liked the danger. He was a vampire. He was evil. True, he wasn't exactly take-over-the-world-evil, but he was still kill-people-for-food-evil. He'd been doing that even when Rider had known him. It wasn't like she had any way of stopping him. He was a vampire, and she'd been nothing but a sixteen year old discovering her magic. She couldn't have stopped him from doing anything. She couldn't even have stopped him from killing her. It was a good thing he'd seemed to think she was a great toy to have a while at least.

She heard footsteps outside the door. She really hoped that would be Spike, or someone else who wasn't Damien. But when she looked through the spyhole, she saw him outside, looking up at her with a humourless smile. He looked no different than the last time she'd seen him. No older at least. Of course he didn't. But she knew she was different. Hopefully she'd be less afraid now.

"Freya! Open up! I know you're there," he called. She could hear him well enough, even through the door. But she didn't open the door. She kept it closed, locked, bolted. She didn't want to see Damien.

"Get out of here, asshole!" she yelled. That had the unfortunate side effect of announcing her presence, but he was a vampire; he'd know she was there already by her scent, no matter how much or how little noise she made. Shouting insults at him at least made her feel better.

"I just need to ask you something." Damien said. He was speaking more quietly now, forcing Rider to move closer to the door in order to hear him. Why did she even want to hear what he was saying? Knowing Damien, whatever it was, she wasn't going to like it. "I'm looking for someone. I was wondering if you could do a locator spell for me."

"Why, to help you kill someone? Hell no!" That was all Damien liked, really. That and playing his stupid, pathetic little mind games to get her to do what he wanted. Thankfully he'd tired of trying once she'd got old enough and strong enough to resist. He'd left her alone. But not only alone, completely alone. Damien had been all she had. Without him, she had been lost. Somehow, she'd actually ended up missing him. Thankfully, that was over.

"Well, yeah. But he's a vampire. You're okay with killing vamps right?"

"For no specific reason? Actually, no. I'm really not. I don't like killing. The only time I've ever killed anyone - that includes vampires - it's always been in self-defence. When I needed to. I don't murder people. That's your thing."

"It's his thing too. He killed thousands. Maybe hundreds of thousands. He killed me. And my sister... Little Erin. You know, you remind me of her. Not that you look anything alike, but you have a certain stubbornness in common. Although I have to say, I think even at twelve she was more mature than you."

Rider resisted the temptation to open the door and punch him in the face. That wouldn't solve anything, and would probably get her killed. "Damien, I'm not helping you kill anyone. Not even a vampire. If that's all you wanted from me, just get the fuck out of here."

"Who are you to boss me around like that? You're human, I'm a vampire. That means I'm the predator, you're just the prey. I'm twice as strong as you; I could kill you in a second. So don't order me to do anything."

"Unless you plan on burning down the house, there's no way for you to hurt me without an invitation. You don't have the power here, I do. Leave, like I told you to. Or I _will_ set you on fire."

Damien chuckled, and then left. Rider heard his footsteps as he walked away. She sank down onto the floor of the hall. She hated Damien. Even that one encounter with him had been awful, and she'd been protected by the house. There was no reason for Rider to be afraid of him any more, but despite all her posturing, she was still scared when he was around. Next time she saw him, she might really consider setting him on fire.

That was when she realised something. The vampire Damien wanted to kill - Damien had mentioned it was the one who had killed him. The one who had sired him. Even if Damien hadn't mentioned the name to her today, she still remembered who it was from when Damien had told her years ago. Spike. William the Bloody. The very same vampire who had come to Rider for help mere days ago. She had to let him know about Damien. She was helping him already anyway, and she didn't want to let Damien kill him. Even if she didn't really know him or care about him, she didn't want Damien to kill anyone she knew.

* * *

A few hours after the girl had gone home, Spike came back downstairs for more blood. He hadn't eaten much lately, and he was starving. He hadn't expected to see Angel and Drusilla both in the hotel lobby, seeming to be getting along. They were sitting side by side on a couch in the corner, Drusilla whispering in Angel's ear and giggling. Spike felt a pang of jealousy when he saw them like that, but couldn't work out quite why. Probably just a habit from the old days when te three of them were together.

Drusilla looked up at his approach, seemingly startled by the sound of his quiet footsteps. She got gracefully to her feet, her movements as fluid as a river as she walked closer.

"Spike," she said. "We were just talking."

Whatever they had been talking about, it didn't seem to be something Angel wanted to talk about. Which wasn't surprising, since he didn't really want to talk at all. While Drusilla had been giggling and laughing during their conversation, Angel seemed to be trying his hardest to keep from staking Dru. So they hadn't actually been getting along then. Spike felt almost glad somehow.

"What were you talking about then, pet?"

Drusilla moved closer to him, so slowly and gracefully that her movements were almost imperceptible. "Oh, so many things," she whispered to him. "Of knights and princesses, a murderous damsel and a witch. They're all planning something different and there's so much confusion it gets hard to think. And then the assassin comes for the knight and it all get worse, but the damsel will get the last laugh. She won't be afraid anymore."

"Angel? What were you actually talking about?"

"You," Angel said. "And the tape."

"Because those to things are intrinsically linked all of a sudden?"

"You've been spending a lot of time on this. It's not like you."

"Okay... So what's your point? You're just worried because I'm acting slightly differently than usual? What, you think I'm sick or something?"

Angel frowned. "Vampires don't get sick."

"They can if they're poisoned though, right? Like when Eve put that weird bug thing on you."

Angel hadn't become any less confused. "Who would try to poison you?"

"I have enemies!" Spike said.

"Right. Well, my point was, what do you really think you can do? Exorcize the ghost from the tapes she's haunting?"

"Exorcisms are for demons, not ghost's, you nitwit. Of course we aren't going to exorcise her."

"But what are you going to do? Dru says she wants you to help her. Are you going to do that? Because, to me, helping a killer ghost doesn't actually sound like a good idea."

Drusilla laughed then, a high tinkling sound like shattered glass falling on the ground. Spike shivered. She was right next to him now. She'd got there without him noticing. When she laughed, he felt it in his ear. "Don't listen to him, love," she said. "She needs our help. She's all alone with no one to love her and she wants to be set free."

Angel was right. Even though his instincts told him to listen to Drusilla, his mind knew that Angel had it right. It wasn't really a good idea to try to help a ghost. And setting her free? What did that mean, letting her kill anyone she wanted even without the tape? That couldn't be a good thing at all. And yet, there was something inside Spike that was trying to convince him that Dru was right. Samara needed their help. She was trapped, underwater, and she couldn't get out. She hated the water so much... Why had Rachel left her there? All she'd wanted was someone to love her...

It was then that Spike realised these weren't entirely his own thoughts. Rachel? Who the bloody hell was Rachel? He should find out. If she knew Samara, she could come in handy. He tried to focus on what Angel and Drusilla were trying to say to him, but he couldn't forget the way it felt just then, when she had almost taken over his mind. It had felt like he had been the one down there in the well. It felt almost like he was still there. He reached unconsciously to move his hair out of his face, but it was still slicked back. It was Samara whose hair was in his face. Not him. He wasn't there. He wasn't trapped in a well, he was here, in the hotel. The completely dry hotel.

"Are you all right?" Angel asked. He sounded genuinely concerned. Oh crap, did Spike really look bad enough for Angel to start worrying? Possibly, if he looked like he felt. He could still here the girl whispering in his mind. She was in pain. She was afraid. But most of all, she was angry. If Spike had been human, the feeling of that anger would have terrified him. But as a vampire, even an ensouled one, it seemed to energize him. He wanted to know what would come of it. If he was still soulless, he would have loved the results of an anger like that. But now, it really did scare him, if only a bit. What had happened to this girl?

"I'm fine," Spike said. He was lying very badly, but what was Angel going to do about it? Spike was the one who'd got into this mess in the first place. "Just seeing things. Probably need sleep." That at least was definitely true. Spike felt like he could sleep for a week right now. He would do so if was possible to avoid Samara while he did, but he knew it wasn't. She stalked him even in the day when he slept. It wasn't right. She tormented him enough while he was awake, why stop him sleeping too?

"I can feel her. She's in your mind now, stuck there like toffee." Dru said. Spike wasn't sure she quite understood how a simile was supposed to be used. The point was that the two things compared were similar, but Samara being compared to toffee... that was just insane. She was more like... nails. That was it. She was stuck in his head like big, eight inch long nails... And that was definitely true. She was stuck in his head. So much that he was starting to wonder if he'd ever feel alone in it again. _You did this,_ she whispered inside his mind. _You let me in. You let the dead get in._

"Why did you watch that tape?" Angel asked.

"I don't know. I felt like I needed to. I just… I felt compelled. Wait… I think it might have been her. Cheeky little bitch, she made me do it. She called to me. I felt her." It seemed so clear now. Spike hadn't watched the tape because he'd been curious, or wanted to know what would happen. He'd been forced to. Samara had decided to select him as a victim all of her own.

"Have you figured out a way to survive yet? Because I don't think you have long left."

"Three days. I still have three days. That's long enough. I know what I have to do. Only problem is finding someone stupid enough to go along with it."

Angel gave him a puzzled look, but didn't question it. He just stayed quiet. Maybe that had been all he'd wanted to know. Spike didn't care. He needed sleep. He walked upstairs, ignoring the imploring look Drusilla gave him as he walked away from her.

* * *

The call came right as Spike was getting ready to go to bed. He swore, then fumbled in the pocket of the jeans he'd thrown on the floor. He really wasn't in the mood for this right now. He was so tired, even though it was the middle of the night.

"That you, Rider?"

"You were expecting me this time then?" That was Rider's voice all right. She sounded a little shaken. Not quite scared, but there was an edge to her voice that definitely didn't make her seem calm.

"Yeah," he said. "What you calling for then, find out anything else about this Samara?" He was actually a little hopeful. This girl was surprisingly hard to find information on.

"No. Been busy, sorry. I called to warn you."

Warn him. Now why did that sound ominous? "'Bout what?"

"A vampire. Damien Hale. He just got back into town and he's looking for you. He wants revenge."

"What? Why? I don't even know any Damien. What could he want revenge on me for.

"He told me you sired him." Rider said.

Spike paused for a moment. "I don't remember him. How do you know him?"

"We... kind of used to date." Rider admitted.

"You went out with a vampire?" Strange. He thought she'd be a bit smarter than that. Obviously not.

"Yeah, so? Look, I was just a kid at the time. Well, a teenager. I didn't have the best judgement." Rider said. She was annoyed, he could tell. But he didn't actually care that much.

"Still, you'd think even a ten year old could tell hanging around with vamps is generally a bad idea."

"Shut up. I'm trying to give you a heads up here and you're just being annoying."

Spike sighed. "Yeah, right. I know. So he claims I sired him, does he? When was this?" If it was after the year 2000 he was very obviously lying. But why would he do that anyway? It seemed pointless to lie about who sired him, unless the whole revenge thing was an act to get on Rider's good side and he really wanted to kill Spike for unrelated reasons.

"Uh... about 1993 I think. I don't know for certain. I'd have to ask Damien, and asking him would mean I'd have to speak to him. I... really don't want to do that."

1993\. Yeah, okay, that was possible. Spike hadn't really kept track of everyone he'd turned. How was he supposed to know one of them would try to track him? He'd watch out for this Damien bloke. He knew he couldn't be too tough. He was just a vampire. Spike had fought plenty of vampires, and they didn't usually give him too much trouble, especially not one so young. Even Spike was young for a vampire, at one-hundred-and-twenty-four, but this Damien would be about eleven. It was almost funny. What did he think he was doing, coming after Spike? He'd killed Slayers, and this guy wouldn't be anywhere near as strong as a Slayer, and probably not as good a fighter either. He wouldn't be a problem.

"Right. Okay. Still don't remember siring any Damien, but thanks for the heads up I guess. Call me again when you've got something on Samara." He hung up.

Well. This was irritating. First he had a ghost trying to kill him, and now a vampire too. What was this, try to kill Spike week? He could try to get some sleep now, he needed it, but was it really worth it? He knew he couldn't sleep properly. He'd have dreams of her again. The girl. Samara. He saw her everywhere he looked now, every time he closed his eyes. Was this what it was like for Dru all the time? If it was, he really did feel sorry for her. He knew he couldn't live with it if he had to be like this all the time.

* * *

Damien was starting to consider giving up entirely. His search hadn't shown him much. He'd been to a few demon bars, beat up a few of the patrons. And yet, apparently none of them had met a vampire named Spike. If that was true, he could barely believe it. These were exactly the places he'd expect a vampire like Spike to be.

But if wasn't true, he wondered why they'd all be covering him. It wasn't like Spike was particularly popular in the demon crowd as of late. Maybe that was why none of them had seen him. Maybe he was hiding out somewhere. Maybe he knew that Damien was coming for him. That didn't seem possible, but who knew. Maybe one of the demons he'd interrogated had tipped him off.

But Damien didn't think a guy like Spike would hide from him. He was cocky enough to go chasing after Slayers - he wouldn't hide. He'd want to fight. And he'd get a fight. Damien couldn't wait. But for that, he had to find him first. That was the part that was proving difficult. But he knew it had to be possible. Spike couldn't keep a low profile for long. And when he came out, that was when Damien would strike. He wouldn't kill him quickly either. That would be getting off easy. No, he'd make him suffer. Like Damien had suffered.


	7. Chapter Seven

**_The Ghost's Curse_**

 _Chapter Seven_

* * *

Two days to go. _Well, isn't that grand?_ Spike thought to himself as he took another gulp from the bottle on the table in front of him. The liquor didn't really help with the visions he kept seeing, but he could try to fool himself that it did. Something had to. He couldn't go on like this forever. That ghost kid was there in his mind all the time now, never letting him go. But then, it wouldn't go on forever, would it? In two days, this would be over. In two days, everything would be over. He was getting to the point where he wondered if maybe that was a good thing. But he couldn't die now, when he'd already survived far worse than this. He could live forever if he tried hard enough, and for him that was actually true. But he had to try. If all he wanted to do was just give up, even trying could be hard.

He could hear her in his mind at all times, a constant companion, showing him visions and dreams of what she had in store and of things that came before. If he could understand any of what she showed him, he would have liked to have a glimpse at her past, at his future. But none of it made sense to him. It was all a jumble of images that weren't in any recognisable sequence or order... it meant nothing to him. And there was that name. Rachel. Who was that? He wanted to know, but he didn't know any way to find out. It wasn't like he could just search the name Rachel and be able to find her... Rachel wasn't an unusual name. In fact, it was pretty bleeding common. So how could he find out who Rachel was?

Then Spike realised, he did know a way to find her. Rider. She was a witch; she could find this Rachel for him. He'd call her later. Well, earlier, even. Tomorrow. He wasn't going to try phoning her right now - it was past three in the morning. Like as not she'd be asleep, same as any sane person was at this hour. But maybe, if he asked her to try to find this Rachel, he could get some answers. It seemed pointless - he'd already saved the girl, he already knew how to save himself. But saving two people who were at risk wasn't enough. He could stop this. Maybe. But he wasn't sure how. This wasn't something he could fight. He wasn't even sure what they could do. But trying to understand the ghost better made a lot of sense. It seemed like a decent starting place at least.

But what he had to do first was find someone to watch the copy of his tape. He needed to get it back from Rider first. Maybe she'd watched it, that'd be useful. For him at least. Thing was, it was kind of hard to pick someone to watch it. It wasn't like he actually wanted to kill anyone. Not these days. So he didn't really know what to do. Not to mention, most people had heard of this tape. They knew what it did when they watched it. They knew what would happen to them. So finding someone stupid enough to risk watching a tape that could kill them was gonna be easier said than done. But he couldn't give up, he couldn't let this girl win. Even if he did have to kill someone.

* * *

Grace looked at the clock. It was now only a matter of hours until day seven for her. After that, she'd know if she really would survive. But until then, she felt doubt still inside of her. It couldn't really be so easy. She couldn't really be safe already. She was still terrified, her every muscle tensed so much she felt frozen. What if it wasn't true? What if she had to do more to leave? Maybe she was being irrational, she didn't know, but she knew she didn't feel safe. Everything still felt the same. She felt like someone was chasing her.

As the second hand, and then the minute hand, slowly crept forwards, Grace became more afraid. She noticed she was shaking. She felt like hiding, but didn't know why. Maybe it was just a reaction to her fear. At least if she died, she might be able to see Meg. She'd barely had a chance to mourn for her sister. She'd gone from Grace's death, to fearing for her own life. It was too much. How did any of this even happen? If only her sister had never watched that stupid tape, then everything would be all right. If only...

Finally, the time had come. Grace felt dread building in her stomach, like a lead weight inside her. She was so scared she felt sick. She heard static, and wasn't sure if it was coming from the television or her own head. She didn't want to find out. She kept looking at the clock. If it kept moving, if it moved past the time she'd been given, only then would she know if she'd survive.

The second hand kept ticking, unbearably slowly. Grace held her breath. Then the minute hand moved. And it moved again, after the second hand had moved a full circle. A ring. It kept moving, even as Grace stared at it. She let out her breath. She was still alive. It was the seventh day, and she was still alive. She was going to live. She didn't quite know what to make of that. She had been awaiting her own death all this time, knowing it would happen, and feeling so utterly powerless. But she had survived.

* * *

Spike walked up to Rider's house. He rang the doorbell. There were footsteps inside, and then she stood in the doorway with an annoyed expression on her face.

"What do you want?" she asked. "Because I'm actually in the middle of something-"

"I need the tape," Spike said.

Rider frowned. "Tape? I don't have a tape... Oh! The disk you gave me. It took me a sec, seeing as it's no longer a tape... Right." She disappeared back into the house. Spike could have followed her - she'd invited him in already, from last time. But he didn't see a reason to. So he waited. Seemed he did a lot of waiting recently.

Rider came back, carrying the cursed tape in her hand. "I guess it's good that you're taking it now. There isn't really much I can do with it, short of watching it. And I'm not going to do that. That's a crazy thing to do. I mean, not that I'm calling you crazy or anything..."

Spike shrugged. "Must be, mustn't I, to do the things I do." He took the disk from Rider's hand. He was almost disappointed that she hadn't watched it. Would have made it easier for him. He noticed that she was trembling, sweat glistening on her skin. "Be seeing you, then."

"Yeah. Bye," said Rider.

Spike turned to leave, but then turned back. "Almost forgot - I heard a name. She told me it. There's this person called Rachel. I know she has something to do with Samara's past, but I can't find her. Couldn't you do like, a locating spell type thing to find her? Since googling Rachel would come up with a few too many results..."

"Honestly? I don't think there is anything I could do. I mean, I could try, but if all I know about her is that she's called Rachel, it might take a while. Ideally I'd need something of hers. I'm guessing you don't have anything?" Rider seemed to be getting more aggravated with every passing second.

"No. All I know is what I said. Name's Rachel, she's got _something_ to do with Samara. Don't know what."

"Then I really don't think I can help. Goodbye," she said through gritted teeth. The moment Spike left, she slammed the door shut.

Spike didn't have time to worry about her. He needed to find someone to watch his tape. If he didn't do that, he'd die. He didn't want to die. He wasn't afraid - or liked to think he wasn't - but it wasn't something he especially desired. It was something he had to deal with a lot, however. He did a lot of things that could get him killed. Had done, on one occasion. But closing the Hellmouth happened to be a much better reason to die than being the prey of some ghost kid with an anger problem. He didn't want to let her win. It sounded like a pathetic reason to sentence an innocent person to death, even if he could figure a way to save others. It was nothing but cowardice. But maybe Spike was a coward, at times.

He walked away, the disk in his pocket feeling as if it weighed a ton. He didn't want to do this. But he was still going to.

* * *

It wasn't as hard to find someone willing to watch the tape as he'd thought it would be. Of course, if had been, he probably wouldn't be here when tomorrow came. He sat in a bar - not a demon bar, just a regular one - with a boy sitting across from him. It was a boy, not a man. He looked barely old enough to be here. In fact, Spike doubted that he was. Rich kid like him probably wouldn't have too much trouble getting a fake I.D. He was holding the disk Spike had just passed him, his hands shaking slightly. He was bloody terrified.

"This is really it?" the kid asked. "The cursed tape?"

"The very same. Just remember, make a copy, and get someone else to watch it before the seven days is up. If you don't, well... You know what'll happen."

"I'll die." The kid's face barely seemed to hold expression as he said those words. He just looked... bored.

"That's right. And don't say you don't believe it - I know you do, or you wouldn't be watching it."

The kid grunted in acknowledgement that Spike had spoken, but didn't speak a word. He just kept looking at the disk in his hands, turning it over as if to make sure it was real. He looked at his with marvel in his eyes. To him, it was a treasure, rather than a curse. Poor kid didn't know a thing. After another drink, the kid left, back to his home. Where he was, more than likely, about to watch the tape.

Spike watched him leave. He didn't wonder if he was doing the right thing, because he knew he wasn't. He really wasn't. If that kid didn't get anyone to watch his tape, then Spike had, for all intents and purposes, killed him. And for what? Just because he wanted to live a while longer? He ordered another bottle of cheap bourbon, drank half of it in one gulp. It was the only thing likely to make him feel better right now.

A while later he left. It was a good thing he wasn't driving tonight - he knew he would have crashed. That would be bloody inconvenient, it would. So he walked. Down darkened, narrow alleyways, stayed away from the light. He splashed through a puddle on the ground, destroying the reflection of the buildings behind him. Was hardly fair, that they got reflections and he didn't. Wasn't like the buildings wanted to look at themselves.

The attack caught him of guard, intoxicated as he was, and he could do nothing. Strong arms grasped him and held him down. He looked up, into the face of his attacker. He didn't recognise her at first. But after a moment, when his vision refocused, he realised who it was. Wasn't like he knew all that many blue girls.

"Illyria!? Bloody hell, what are you doing?"

Illyria got to her feet and brushed herself off. Her wide, unnaturally blue eyes stared into his. "I was checking your reflexes," she said. He felt convinced that she just wanted to hit something. There wasn't anything Illyria liked more than a good spot of violence.

"Yeah, well, can you try doing that when I'm sober next time?"

"You shouldn't allow yourself to become so inebriated. It would be easy for an opponent to take advantage of your temporary weakness." Illyria started walking off. Spike scrambled up off the ground and hurried after her.

"What enemies? Wolfram and Hart don't seem to have done too much since last year. Trying to recuperate, probably. Same as us. Where have you been anyway?"

"Where I choose to spend my time is none of your concern."

It still seemed strange to Spike how different she was from Fred. It wasn't just the superficial differences - her blueness, the leather and all that - but how she acted. Illyria was so much colder. Although she was in a human body, there was never any doubt in Spike's mind that she wasn't human at all.

Spike almost wished for something to attack them on their way back to the hotel. It would have broken the empty loneliness that had descended over them as a shroud. Would have broken the monotony a nice bit. But their walk back to the Hyperion was uneventful. It was a shame - it left Spike plenty of time to think about the terrible decision he had made earlier. He didn't want to - brooding was Angel's thing. But he couldn't banish the thoughts from his mind. Worse than that, he couldn't banish the ghost from his mind. She was whispering to him again, seeming louder than ever. Tomorrow, it would be his seventh day. The day he would have died. The visions should stop after that point. He was looking forward to it; he didn't know how much more of this he could take.


	8. Chapter Eight

**_The Ghost's Curse_**

 _Chapter Eight_

* * *

The moment they arrived back at the hotel, Illyria ran off to the room she'd been staying in. She didn't stay for even a second to talk; chatting wasn't Illyria's thing. Killing was. Spike went straight upstairs, but not to his own room. He wanted to see Drusilla. Talk to her again. Maybe he could ask her something about the ghost. Dru said she needed help—what did that mean? She was dead; there could be nothing they could do to help her. And yet, that was the whole reason Drusilla had come here. To help the dead girl. She'd thought he would help. And why not? That was what they did now, wasn't it? He helped people.

As soon as he reached the room, he realised something was wrong.

He knew as soon as he opened the door that Drusilla wasn't there. The whole place was quiet. He looked anyway, even though he knew he wouldn't find her. On the kitchen table was a chipped teacup full of blood, Miss Edith beside it. Spike picked up the cup: it was cold. She must have been gone a while, and she'd left in a hurry. He threw the teacup down, watched it smash into bits. Wished he could do the same. Blood stained the carpet. Angel would be annoyed if he saw it, but Spike didn't care.

Drusilla was gone. Where could she be? Angel had said he wanted to get rid of her, but Spike knew he hadn't done it. For a start, there would be ashes if Angel had killed her. There were none. That, at least, gave Spike hope. Hope. Why did he even hope she was all right? He shouldn't. She might have been his sire, but she had left him. They hadn't seen each other in years. There a chasm between them. But the bond between them could never be broken.

"Spike? What are you doing in here?"

Spike turned and looked behind him. Angel stood in the doorway. "You know where she is?" he asked. It was a long shot. Why would Angel know any more than he did?

"Drusilla? You mean she isn't here?" Spike watched the expression on Angel's face change from confusion to horror. "That isn't good. She could be doing anything. She's probably already out there eating people by now."

"I think she was attacked. She left her blood unfinished, and she wouldn't have done that if she'd just left. Except, maybe she would, what with being insane and all. Maybe the pixies told her to go somewhere, and it was so desperate she couldn't stay for even a minute to finish off the blood. I don't know. But we have to find her."

"Really? Why do we need to find her? Dru's a vampire, she can take care of herself," Angel said.

"You're kidding. You were the one saying to me a few days ago that we couldn't let Dru stay here because she was going to go out on a killing spree. She didn't kill a single person while she was here. But now she's gone, there's nothing we can do. She could be torturing nuns for all we know," Spike said. "Wait, no. Dru didn't torture nuns. That was your thing, wasn't it Angelus?"

"Don't call me that," Angel said. "We're not the same."

"Yeah, that's right, isn't it? You got a soul, now you're a completely different person. Except not. Not at all. You're the exact same person, with the exact same thoughts. The only difference between you and Angelus is that you have a conscience. That's it. You keep talking like you're two different bloody people, but you're just not. You're one and the same, but you just can't accept that, can you?"

Angel glared at Spike. "Can we get back to the subject at hand? Drusilla's missing. Like you said before you went off on a tangent, she could be doing anything. She could be out murdering orphans. We need to find her. She probably hasn't left the city. There's plenty of places she could be, but some are more likely than others. She could be at an orphanage, like I said. Or... a cemetery, a toy store, a church..."

Spike pondered. "Hm. You're right. Murdering orphans does sound more Dru's style than torturing nuns does."

"Spike!"

"Yeah? What?"

"Focus! There isn't time for us to be discussing whether Dru would be more likely to murder orphans or torture nuns. That doesn't matter. We need to find her, so we can stop her doing any of those sorts of things. Okay? Think, Spike. Where would she be?"

Spike thought. Several years ago, he would have been able to give he answer right away. But it had become so much more difficult. What if they'd lost her? If they never saw her again. All it would take was coming across the Slayer or one of her friends. Or even someone else. Despite what common sense would dictate, there were actually a fair few vampire hunters, not to mention there were thousands of Slayers now. If Dru ran into any one of them...

"We have to go. We have to find her. Now."

Angel looked at him. "Spike, we don't even know where she is. What are you even expecting to do when you find her? If she did go out of her own accord, then you can't just drag her back. Although, she might actually like it if you did."

"I don't care. We have to try. We have to look for her. There must be some way we can track her."

"Well, scent won't work; this is a city, there are too many smells. Even a werewolf would struggle, and vampires don't have a sense of smell that good. So we have no way—"

"I don't care!" Spike growled. "We're going to find her!"

He stormed out of the room, grabbing Miss Edith of the table as he left. He knew he looked right strange carrying a doll, but it was a connection to Dru, if a small one. Angel didn't try to follow him. Probably guessed it would be useless.

Spike didn't know what he was even doing. The first place he went was where Angel had suggested. An orphanage. They hadn't seen anyone there matching Drusilla's description, and he thought the girl he was talking to was under the impression he was crazy. Made sense, since he was carrying a doll and acting angry and irrational, and saying some things that didn't make any sense to anyone unfamiliar with them. The next place he checked was a cathedral. Again, she wasn't there. Dru had always liked cathedrals. She liked the stone, and the stained glass windows, and the cavernous space inside them. But she wasn't there. Eventually, Spike was forced to pause in his fruitless search. He leaned against the wall of a shop and lit a cigarette. No one made him leave — it was still the middle of the night, and there was no one inside. So he stood there, smoking and thinking. Calming down.

Maybe it was the nicotine, or maybe it was the time that had passed, but he felt a little more in possession of himself. And because of that, he had an idea. He'd already asked Rider to find Rachel, but she'd said she wouldn't be able to, because she needed something of hers. But this time, Spike did have something of Drusilla's. He had the doll.

He headed over to Rider's. It was a long walk, and gave him too much time to think. He didn't like that. Awful things were rushing through his head. Imaginings he'd rather not have. Drusilla, lying almost motionless, blood pouring from wounds in her belly, recoiling as a stake was slammed down into her chest. And then her again, but not in danger. She was holding down a crying child, feeding from their neck, lapping up the blood like a cat with milk. He didn't want to think about either of these things. But things like this kept sneaking into his mind.

And there were other things as well. Samara. He saw her everywhere, so much that he now just ignored her. So much that her voice in his head was nothing but white noise. Maybe by tomorrow he would stop seeing her.

He knocked until his knuckles bled before Rider would answer.

She threw the door open. "What? What the hell do you want now, Spike? I'm starting to get really sick of this!" She was standing there wearing her pyjamas and dressing gown. Her eyes were red and bloodshot.

"I need your help," he said.

"Yeah, I guessed that. Damn... you do realise it's four o' clock in the morning, right?"

Spike was confused. It couldn't be four o' clock. It had been about eleven when he'd given that kid the tape, and it couldn't have been more than a couple of hours since then... But obviously, he'd been unaware of the time passing. Stranger things had happened.

"Yeah, no. I actually didn't know that. But I need you to do a locator spell."

"If this is about that Rachel, I already told you—"

"No, it's not about Rachel. It's about Drusilla,"

"Drusilla? I know that name..."

"She was my sire. We were lovers for over a hundred years. She was here, with me and Angel. But now she's gone. And we need to know where. You said earlier you couldn't find Rachel because I didn't have anything that belonged to her, but I have something of Dru's." He held up the doll to show Rider.

Rider took Miss Edith from his hands. "A china doll, huh? I used to have a bunch of these back at home. But that was a while ago now. I wonder if they're still there, or if my mom threw them out. Whatever, you don't care, why am I telling you? I'll try and do the spell for you. But in the morning, okay?"

"No, now. We have to find her now." Spike wasn't aware of how much he sounded like a petulant child.

"Fuck, Spike, it's the middle of the night! I need sleep! In the morning, I will do the spell for you. Not until then." Rider closed the door. Spike almost ran in afterwards to force her to do the spell for him, but maybe that wouldn't be particularly helpful. She'd never want to do anything for him again, and she could be useful to him again in the future.

He wandered back. He'd done what he could. There wasn't any more he could do. He needed sleep. It was only four o' clock, and he already wanted to go to bed. Maybe it was the drink, maybe all the stress, or maybe it was the ghost and the visions she sent. But he needed to rest.

Angel and Illyria were gone by the time he got back. They were probably where he'd been — trying to find Drusilla. He felt like he should be with them. But he was tired.

* * *

Angel skulked down the street. He didn't know where he was going. He'd been to several cemeteries, three antique doll stores and a jewellery store. None of them showed any trace of an insane vampire. Angel was starting to think that maybe Drusilla had left the city. He hoped she hadn't. She could have killed hundreds of people from here to... wherever she was. He didn't know where she could be. Anywhere.

He'd sent Illyria off on her own to find her, saying they had more chance of finding her if they split up. Mostly, he just didn't want Illyria to be around if he did find her. Or Spike. _Definitely_ not Spike. Spike was worried about Drusilla, he wanted to help her. Not Angel. Angel knew that the only thing they could do with Drusilla now was kill her. She was a soulless vampire, not to mention insane. Spike wouldn't want him to do that, so Angel wasn't going to let him know. What he didn't know couldn't hurt him, right?

But it didn't matter yet, because Angel hadn't seen a single trace of Drusilla. It was like she'd disappeared. He had to find her soon — the sun would be up in a few hours. If he didn't find her soon, he wouldn't be able to for another day. He could try getting around using the sewers and storm drains, but he doubted that he'd find Drusilla in a sewer. It just didn't suit her. Maybe it was time to give up. If she was outside the city, she was the Slayers' problem now. That was fine by Angel.

* * *

Spike woke slowly. He became aware of sounds at first, then he opened his eyes. At first he didn't quite understand where he was, and thought he was still dreaming, but that strange feeling subsided and he realised he was at the Hyperion. He'd been looking for Dru, and then he'd gone to bed early because he was so tired. He'd felt like he was about to collapse. He didn't feel much better now. He walked over to the window, had a look outside. The sun hadn't even risen yet. He cocked his head, thinking. Was there enough time? Yeah, there was a little. He could go out and look for Dru for a bit. He knew he wouldn't find her, but he felt better if he was doing something. He wasn't as worried now. He'd told Rider to do that locator spell, and she'd do it when she got up, which probably wasn't going to be for a few hours. Remembering how angry and annoyed she had been last night, he didn't go to her now. But he was still going out.

Although the sun had not yet risen, the sky had lightened and took on a greyish tint. He didn't have long. He went to the park. It seemed like somewhere Dru would have gone. She liked places like this. He could almost see her sprawled out on one of the benches, listening to crickets, or swimming naked in the cold water of the pond. Maybe feeding on one of the drunk people wandering around. But she wasn't there. The same as she hadn't been anywhere else he'd looked. She was gone.

He growled in frustration. It didn't make sense! Why would she have come to him for help, and then just left, without a word? She must have been attacked, it was the only logical explanation. And yet... Dru wasn't logical. Well, she was. But, she didn't follow the usual kind of logic. She had a kind of logic that was unique to her. She could have thought whatever had made her leave was so urgent that she had to go. But it seemed especially strange that she had left Miss Edith. She took that doll everywhere she went. For her to leave it behind...

Spike strolled through the park. It was a strange place here at night. A place like this should be full of people. At night though, there was hardly anyone there at all. And most who were there had the sense to hide. Most humans would say they weren't scared of the dark, but they still knew that they didn't belong to the night, not like vampires did. He looked at the nests of birds, high in the trees. Dru had always liked birds. She'd tried to keep them, but they'd never lasted long. She forgot to feed them, and they died. They always died. She couldn't take care of anything particularly well.

He sighed. There wasn't anything he had to do here. There was no point in staying. Drusilla wasn't here, or he'd see her, or at least smell her. She wasn't here. He started to walk back the way he'd come. It had been a while since he'd done so much walking. He'd forgotten how tedious it was. He looked up at the sky again and saw the light from the stars was fading as it grew lighter. The sun was only barely below the horizon now, and the sky was pale. He wondered if he'd even be able to get home before the sun rose.

For the second time that night, he was caught off guard by an attack.

"Illyria, stop doing that!" he shouted, annoyed. But he soon realised this wasn't Illyria.

Illyria had no scent. That had been extremely noticeable when he'd first come face to face with her. She didn't have any of Fred's scent, nor any scent of her own. She just didn't have one — it was like she wasn't there. But this person did. And this person was much bigger than Illyria — they weighed maybe 180 pounds, which was almost twice Illyria's size. Plus they were a vampire, which Illyria wasn't.

Spike didn't manage to get a good look at whoever this was. All he could do was fight. It wasn't a long fight. Spike was tired, he was drunk, he was distracted by the hallucinations and he was worried about Drusilla. So he could barely fight at all. His movements were too slow, almost sluggish. His opponent was a young vampire, but he was a half decent fighter. In normal circumstances, Spike would have been able to beat him in seconds. But today, he was struggling.

He ducked from another blow, and almost tripped. His sense of balance was off. He'd been drinking too much. He should have known it was a terrible idea, but he wasn't counting on being attacked. Except he should have been. He'd known about this. Rider had told him about that vampire, Damien, who had been looking for him. He hadn't bothered to remember. He was knocked to the ground by a kick to his side and was sent sprawling. He tried to get up, but his opponent forced him to stay down. Damien, who it must have been, stamped onto his face. Spike tasted blood in his mouth. Before Damien could hit him again, he rolled out of the way, clumsily getting to his feet.

"So, it's true? You really have got soft? Because I heard you weren't hurting humans now, and I guess you've lost your teeth..." Damien said.

Spike smirked. "Think your information's a few years out of date, you idiot. Lost the chip when it started to malfunction. I can hurt whoever I bloody well like. And if that happens to be an angry young vampire who thinks they can hurt one of their elders, then so be it." He talked like he knew he was going to win, but in reality he doubted it. He didn't feel like he could. But he was going to fight, even if he did lose. That was what he did. He was a fighter. And he couldn't give up now, not when he'd already risked his life — or unlife — by watching the tape. He'd made it through that, he could make it through this.

"Are you sure it's that out of date? Come on, you can barely stand right now," Damien taunted. It was almost like he wanted Spike to fight him.

Spike rushed towards him, managed to get a few punches in before Damien finally scrambled away. It looked like Damien's nose was broken; it was pouring blood and seemed crooked in a way that it hadn't been before.

"Okay. You know what? I changed my mind. I'm sick of this." When Damien opened his mouth to speak, he showed a glimpse of red-stained teeth from his bleeding nose. Damien reached inside his jacket pocket. There was a knife in his hand. It wasn't just an eating knife, but a long switchblade, sharp and deadly. Spike wasn't sure what he planned to do with that thing — it was too small and light to take his head off and there was no other way to kill a vampire with a knife — but he guessed it would still hurt like hell.

Spike dodged from another attack, and another — Damien was faster than he looked. But apart from his speed and strength, which all vampires had, he didn't have that much of an advantage. He slashed wildly with the knife, not using with any kind of technique at all. It seemed like he wasn't really trying to hurt Spike at all so far, only scare him a bit. But why was that?

Spike dodged again, and then caught the blade of the knife in his hands. He grunted in pain as the sharpened edges of the blade bit into his skin and blood ran through his fingers to the ground. He pulled the knife towards himself, making sure to keep it away from his body. He was stronger than Damien, despite being smaller, but it still didn't work. Damien kicked him in the knee, hard enough that he wondered if the bone could have broken. He stumbled, in pain and off balance, and with another kick he fell to the ground. He felt a blow to his face, a pain so intense he screamed, and then blacked out.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Okay, I updated extremely quickly. I... don't usually do that. This chapter was supposed to be a little longer, but I realised the other scene didn't fit, so it will be in the next chapter instead. I keep doing this, don't I? Hopefully I can keep up the fast updates.


	9. Chapter Nine

_**The Ghost's Curse**_

 _Chapter Nine_

* * *

Spike was woken by pain. It took him a few moments to remember what had happened. But it all came back to him as he grew more awake. He'd been looking for Dru, then Damien had attacked him. He'd lost.

He looked around. He didn't recognise his surroundings, which was no surprise. It was hard for him to make out the objects in the room, even with his enhanced eyesight—night vision didn't do much good when there was no light at all. But he could tell from the quality of the air that he was somewhere damp, cold and underground. Either a cave or... a basement. Great. Spike had had enough of basements for a lifetime.

He tried to push himself up to his feet, but found that he was bound to the floor by chains at his wrists and ankles. He groaned; he'd had enough of them too. And he was _starving._ He hadn't noticed it at first, he'd only noticed the pain and the strange place he was in. But now he felt the hunger, felt it with every fibre of his being. It was good there were no humans nearby. He would have torn their throats out.

A heavy clanking sent tremors of pain through his aching head, and alerted him to the door opening. It allowed light in and Spike could take in his surroundings for the first time. It was a basement, as he had thought. The walls were made of old red bricks, the floor of concrete. Half-rotten wooden steps led up to the ground floor, the door above them. A man stood in the doorway—a vampire. He was about the same height as Spike, although he was stockier. His black hair just brushed his shoulders. His face was pale—no surprise there, him being a vampire. This must be Damien. Spike hadn't got a good look at him last night, but he knew it was him.

"The chains really necessary?" Spike called up.

Damien didn't speak. Spike got the impression he wasn't the speaking type. As he came closer, Spike noticed his eyes. It seemed an odd thing to notice about someone trying to kill him. They were a dull grey, like slate stones. It was possible actual stones would have looked more merciful.

Damien walked past Spike to a bench against the back wall of the basement. Spike tried to turn his head, but couldn't move enough to see him.

"Do you remember me?" Damien asked.

"No," Spike said. "There a reason I should?" That wasn't the right thing to say at all. He mentally kicked himself. _Yeah, great idea, Spike,_ he thought to himself. _Antagonise the person already wanting to kill you, that's gonna be so helpful in this situation._

He didn't see the strike coming until it connected with his head. He gasped in pain, and recoiled, straining against the chains. Blood ran into his face. Damien walked back around to kneel in front of his. He was holding the same knife he'd had last night, now covered in Spike's blood.

"I'd say there is," Damien said. He was close enough that Spike could smell the blood on his breath. "I'd say there's a pretty big reason. You really don't remember?" He brought the knife down into Spike's arm. Spike tried to back away, but didn't get far, tied down as he was. The knife stabbed deep into his flesh and he cried out in pain. Damien smiled with satisfaction. "You should fucking remember. You ruined my life! You ended it!" Damien was shouting. He looked like he was about to stab Spike again, but he didn't. He put the knife down, let it rest on Spike's neck. "And now I'll end yours," he whispered.

Spike barked out a laugh. "You expect me to be afraid of you? You're nothing!" He didn't want to let himself be afraid, but he couldn't help but be. He was unarmed, hung-over and tied down. There was nothing he could do. He hated to feel helpless. He remembered that feeling from back when he'd had the chip. He'd been able to hurt demons well enough, but if any human attacked him, he'd have been unable to defend himself.

Rage flared in Damien's eyes, but he held back. "You'll regret saying that." His voice was gravelly, halfway to a growl. "You'll regret that you ever did anything to me."

"Mm hm. Let me guess, this is the part where you explain your evil plan?"

"What's the point in explaining?"

"Was just wondering. What exactly are you planning to do? 'Cause, just saying, you can't actually kill a vampire with a knife. In case you thought you could."

"I'm not using the knife. I using that." Damien pointed at one of the walls. Spike didn't understand what he meant at first. How could he kill him with a wall? But he saw the black-painted window just below the ceiling and understood. "I'm going to let you burn."

"Why bother with all this? Why not just stake me when you caught be last night? You had an opportunity, but didn't take it. Why?"

"A stake through the heart is too good for you. You deserve something more painful. You deserve to suffer, like you made me suffer. Like you made her suffer... A slow death by burning seems about right. I know some vampires burn up instantly, but you're old. You'll last longer."

"Well, that's just bloody great, innit? Already burned to death once, didn't plan on doing it again..." Spike muttered. Damien frowned at him. Spike guessed that statement confused him more than a little. Burning to death didn't tend to happen more than once.

Damien didn't say anything more. He moved back behind Spike again, and when he saw him next he was holding something else. A brick. It was heavy enough to shatter the window into a hundred thousand little pieces. Spike struggled against the chains. He had to get out of here. He couldn't have saved himself from the ghost just to die at the hands of this vengeful bastard.

He threw it straight at the window. It shattered, broken glass scattering all over the floor. Light flooded the room—but didn't burn them, not yet. The sun was in the wrong place. There was sunlight in the room now, but neither of the vampires were in direct sunlight. They were both safe. For now.

"Two hours," Damien said. "It will take two hours for the sun to move so that it's in your way. So that you burn. That's how long you have left to live."

Damien walked away. He paused as he reached the door, as if he'd suddenly thought of something, but then he continued on.

Spike stared at the remains of the window, where light came into the room. The light was too bright. It hurt his eyes. He looked down. He needed to find a way to get out of these chains. Once he was out of them, the rest would be easy. It was freeing himself from the chains that was the hard part. Pushing against them didn't do anything, even with all his strength. They fit closely to his wrists, so there was no way he could get his hands through them. But he had to get out of here. He wouldn't let himself burn. That was a fact.

Almost an hour of struggling gave him nothing but bleeding wrists. Only one hour was left until the sun was in the right place in the sky. Only one hour left until he died. He closed his eyes. He might as well give up. It was only now that he really began to regret giving the tape to that kid. It ws one thing to let someone else die to save his own life. Maybe it was cowardly, or cruel, but it had a reason. But if he was going to die today anyway, it had been for nothing. Senseless death was something he was supposed to have stopped doing after he'd got his soul.

Time seemed to slow, passing in a haze. It seemed like the air was made of water. He was so hungry... But it wasn't just hunger that was doing this to him. He could see her, in the room. Samara. She looked more real than ever. She was standing there right in the sunlight, yet somehow still shadowed. Her filthy, once white, dress dripped water onto the ground. The oil-black curtain of her hair hung into her face, hiding it from view. She walked forwards.

* * *

Rider growled in frustration. She'd tried to do a locator spell to find Drusilla—but even with the doll she had been unable to find it. It was possible the doll simply wasn't with her enough, but she was probably just too far away. She might have left the city—or even the state. Rider decided to call Spike and tell him that she couldn't find Drusilla. She picked up her phone, intending to do just that.

"Hello?" That voice did not belong to Spike.

"Who is this?" Rider asked.

"Angel. Who are you?"

"Freya Rider. How come you answered Spike's phone?"

"It was annoying me. You were trying to call Spike?"

"Yeah, I was. He asked me if I could find Drusilla or whatever with a locator spell. I couldn't."

A pause. "Have you seen him?"

"Not since about..." Rider checked the time on her watch. "Twelve hours ago. Why, is there somewhere he should be?"

"Yeah. He should be at home, asleep. It's day. He can't still be out during the day. He could burn. I hope he's not still out trying to find Dru."

"He's fine," Rider said. She wasn't sure though. If Spike hadn't found shelter during the day, that could be bad news. Not to mention she knew that Damien was still trying to find him. It wasn't like vampires were fragile, but he hadn't seemed to be in a good state of mind the last she'd seen of him. "Have you seen that Drusilla person?"

"No. Not at all. She seems to be gone. I don't know where. Spike said a few times that she talked about helping a dead girl. That mean anything to you?"

"A dead girl? How could she help a dead girl? Unless—" The ghost. Samara. The one he'd talked to her about. It could mean her. It must have meant her. That made more sense than anything else. It was the simplest explanation. The simplest explanation was usually the best, right?

If Drusilla had gone to try and help Samara, then it would be easy enough to follow Dru. All she had to do was find Samara. That was easier said than done, but it was possible. She'd already done a little research on her, and knew where she came from. She didn't want to travel that far though. Washington was too far... But maybe the trip would be fun. Rider needed to get out of here, have a bit of a rest. Maybe a ghost-hunting mission would let her do just that.

"Hello? Are you still here?" Angel asked.

"Yeah, sure. Sorry, I just kind of spaced out there. I was working something out. About this dead girl. I might know how to find her." Rider hung up the phone. Someone had to find Drusilla, right? She probably hadn't even got that far, if she was tying to get to Washington. That was a long way. It would take almost a full day by car. It was unlikely that Drusilla had gone there by plane—vampires rarely travelled by plane, having difficulty staying out of the sunlight. It might not be too hard for Rider to catch up to her.

* * *

Spike woke in a pool of water. He opened his eyes and lifted his head. The light was brighter. The whole floor of the basement was drenched, the water nearly half a foot deep. The sunlight was reflecting off the surface of the water. It was drawing perilously close. Spike pushed himself into a sitting position. He was expecting to feel the now familiar feeling of the chains restricting his movements. But he didn't feel them. He looked down. The shackles and chains, which had been new earlier, were made of rust. They had come off his wrists while he slept. While he dreamt...

He didn't know why he was still seeing her. This should have stopped by now. She'd had her seven days. So why was she still stalking him?

And why did she seem to be helping him? It didn't make sense, but a painful tingle on Spike's skin told him now wasn't the time to think about it. He got to his feet and moved out of the way of the sunlight. The smashed window did have one advantage—he could actually see in here now. Before it had been too dark to see a thing, even for a vampire. Now the room was bathed in light. He needed to be able to see where he was going. He could now see that the stairs leading to the ground floor looked uneven, old and rotten. Climbing those in the dark would be stupid. A fall wouldn't kill him, but if he broke a bone, he probably wouldn't get out of here alive.

He looked around for a weapon. Damien had taken his knife, but there must be something here. There was a shard of glass on the floor, long and sharp, but probably not strong enough to make an even half decent weapon. Other than that, there wasn't much. There was hardly any furniture in the room, and what there was had been rotted by water.

He walked up the stairs. They creaked. He hoped Damien had left the building, but he doubted it. He couldn't leave during the day. Spike and Angel used the sewers to get around during the day, but there was no access to the sewers in this building. Once he reached the top of the stairs, he kicked the door open. A second later, he heard footsteps. Any hope that Damien wasn't here quickly dissipated. Damien was still here. And now he knew Spike was alive.

Spike wasn't concerned. Damien had got the better of him before because he was vulnerable and distracted. That wouldn't happen this time. He strode through the dark hallway, kicking up clouds of dust from the floor. This place seemed like it had been abandoned for decades before Damien had come here. Paper peeled from the walls in several places. Water-stains gave the appearance of tears falling from the ceiling. The floorboards were so rotten he thought he might fall through them.

The door ahead of him led outside. He started to reach for it, then stopped. He listened. He turned around just in time to block an attack. Looked like Damien had woken up. Spike struck back, punching him in the face. Damien growled, now in game face. He bared his teeth at Spike and leapt to attack him. Spike dodged, letting Damien fall from his own momentum. He stepped on his back to stop him from getting up.

"You thought you could kill me? What are you on? I've killed two Slayers. Probably could have bagged far more recently, if I'd had the mind to. But you... you're nothing."

Damien struggled beneath him, growling. He didn't seem to have even the semblance of rational thought. He got free, and faced Spike again. He came at him with the knife again. Spike had forgotten about that knife. In the small hallway, with hardly any room to manoeuvre, he was unable to get away properly. He screamed in pain as the knife tore into his stomach. But there wasn't time to worry about that now. He kicked at Damien, sent him sprawling. The knife went spinning out of his grasp. Spike grabbed it from the floor.

"You can't kill me, Damien. You shouldn't have even tried." He stepped over Damien's prone form, towards the door.

"How... How did you get out?" Damien asked.

Spike shrugged. "I have my ways," he said. In truth he didn't know what had happened. It had something to do with Samara, he knew that. She seemed to be growing more powerful. Maybe that was something to worry about. He walked outside.

The sunlight burned his skin instantly. He put the knife in his pocket to free his hands, then pulled his coat up over his head. He ran directly to the next house, hiding in the shade for a moment. His skin wasn't burnt badly, and was healing already. He knew Damien wouldn't follow him. A younger vampire would be too vulnerable to sunlight for even that ten foot walk. Spike sat for a moment, taking a short rest. His stomach hurt. There was blood all over his shirt, even trickling down to his jeans. He needed to get changed. Pain killers might be good too. He got up. He'd head to the Hyperion through the sewers. Maybe Angel would have found Drusilla.

* * *

 **Author's Note: ** I apologise for the lateness of this chapter. I shortened it a bit so I could put it up faster. It's fits better this way anyway though. Hopefully I can write chapter ten faster. I've currently only planned up to chapter ten, so advance warning, chapter eleven might be late. I think watching volume 3 of RWBY might be part of the reason this is late... Watching T.V is time consuming. Or maybe I'm just lazy. Anyone know a cure for laziness?


	10. Chapter Ten

**_The Ghost's Curse_**

 _Chapter Ten_

* * *

Cabin Twelve of Shelter Mountain Inn had been closed for three years, ever since an accident involving a guest falling into a well below the floor and finding a skeleton inside it. The cabin never should have been built over the well in the first place. The owner of the Inn had claimed that he didn't know it was there, and he certainly hadn't known about the body. The Inn had remained open, but Cabin Twelve had not. Some said it was haunted.

But Drusilla knew what had really happened here. She paused when she reached the cabin. She could _feel_ the pain that was here. It invaded her mind. The girl had been hurt so badly here. Hurt by the one who was supposed to protect her. Drusilla walked inside. The sound of her shoes clicking on the floorboards, barely muffled by the carpet of dust, seemed unfitting to the environment.

There was still a gaping hole in the floor of the cabin. It had been covered by a tarp, but Drusilla still knew what was hidden there. She pulled the tarp aside and looked down at the well beneath it. It was old, crumbling to dust. It made the whole cabin stink of mould, the scent of forgotten years passed in silence.

So this was where she had died. Where she had drawn her last breath, though all she could breathe was water. This had been the only grave she'd had for over two decades. Drusilla couldn't bear looking at it. She sensed everything the girl had felt while she was there. She felt all of it, and it seemed it would kill her. No wonder the girl had ended up the way she had after her death. Drusilla would be the same. She knew what it was like to be hurt—Angelus had made sure of that. And she had ended up a killer just as the girl had. Perhaps that was one of the reasons why the girl had sought her.

Drusilla perched on the edge of the well, her legs swinging over it. She couldn't do anything on her own. She needed help. But the witch would be here soon. So they could save the girl. So they could set her free. She could wait a while longer. The girl had waited so many years already. Drusilla couldn't wait for the witch to meet her. She just knew she'd love her.

* * *

Angel couldn't sleep.

Strange as it seemed, he was actually _worried_ about Spike. Not to mention Drusilla was off some place wreaking havoc. He'd given up trying to get to sleep about midday, thinking he might get something done instead. He was in the hotel's lobby. Because of that, when Spike limped into the hotel, Angel was already there waiting. He ran over to Spike to help, but Spike pushed him away. Or tried to. He was definitely injured, and it wasn't just his leg. From the way he stood, it looked like there might be an injury to his stomach as well. Not to mention the still-healing burns on his skin, or the bruises on his face.

"What happened?" Angel asked him.

"Ran into some bloke called Damien. Got a bit hurt," Spike said.

"A bit hurt? You can barely walk!"

"Just hurt my knee when I got knocked over last night. Would have been fine if I hadn't fallen on it again when walking here. Stupid sewers, everything's all slippery." Spike tried to walk over to a chair, stumbled, almost collapsed. Angel caught him. Spike glared daggers at him, but let him guide him to the chair.

"I'll be fine," Spike said. "I'm just not healing too well 'cause I haven't had any blood."

"I'll get you some. Maybe some ice, too, for the bruises."

Angel heard Spike grumbling, but didn't pay attention. Angel didn't know what had happened, and Spike wasn't too likely to tell him, at least for a while. Spike had always been like this, ever since Dru sired him. Stubborn. He didn't want others to help him, never had. Always had to try and do things himself, even when it could hurt him.

Angel came back with the blood and ice like he said he would. Spike snatched the blood from him and tore the packet open, drinking the blood down in one gulp. He must have been hungry.

"More," he said.

"I'll give you more when you tell me what happened."

Spike glared at him. The bruises on his face made his blue eyes stand out like glinting knives. He gave in after a minute. "Got ambushed. I was drunk, and distracted, and my guard was down. Got beat up. Lucky he didn't stake me right there, but I guess he wanted to gloat. I got out all right, in the end—still don't quite know how. But I got stabbed on the way out, and the sun wasn't exactly too kind to me either. Had to go out in it several times. Think that's why I didn't heal so well. That, and I hadn't eaten for over a day."

"So you think you're going to be okay now?" Angel asked. He didn't know why he even cared. Of course Spike would be okay. He was a vampire—vampires could heal from anything that didn't kill them. So why was Angel so worried?

"I'll heal," Spike said. "Long as I get enough blood and rest, it will be like I was never injured in the first place. You know that."

"Yeah, of course. It's just... I don't know."

Angel left to get some more blood for Spike. As he came back, he heard a loud scream. He hurried back to Spike, finding him sprawled on the stairs. He'd landed on his hurt knee. His face had shifted to its demonic form from the pain, fangs bared as if he meant to attack.

"Couldn't you at least use the elevator?"

"Stairs are faster," Spike said. "Usually, anyway." He tried to get up, but screamed in pain when he put weight on the injured knee. "Fucking hell!"

"Come one, let me help." Angel lifted Spike to his feet, and helped him support himself without putting much weight on his hurt leg. It would have been much easier to just carry Spike—faster too. But Spike would have been really annoyed, and Angel didn't want him to be. Now that he thought of it, Spike was about the only friend he had left, after Gunn and Wes had died last year. And how sad was that? Spike, of all people, was his only friend. All that time spent at each other's throats and now they were all they had left.

Spike pushed Angel away once they were up the stairs and on the right floor. He leaned on the wall for support, still looking like he was going to fall. Angel turned back, letting him walk into his room on his own. It was only then that he realised Spike hadn't answered his question. He'd asked if Spike would be okay, and Spike had said he'd heal. Those weren't quite the same thing. The difference probably didn't mean anything. But Angel thought it might. Spike was a poet, he was very aware of the nuances of words and phrases. If he'd really meant to say he'd be all right, that would be what he said. It meant _something..._ But Angel really wasn't sure what.

* * *

Rider got out of the car. She nearly slipped on the mud as she did so, but managed to right herself in time. One thing she liked about LA was that it was rarely so muddy there. That might be about the only thing she did like about the place,come to think of it. She didn't know why she stayed there.

She strode ahead, making her way to the cabin. Before she could get there, she felt a hand around her neck. She struggled, but the grip on her throat only grew tighter. She was pulled back, and turned to face her captor.

A vampire. There was no mistaking that, with the forehead ridges, yellow eyes and fangs. Humans didn't usually have fangs. Even for a vampire, this one seemed odd. She was wearing a long velvet skirt and heeled boots, not even slightly dressed for the weather. Not only that, but she didn't seem to be killing Rider yet.

"The little witch has finally arrived to the party. I was wondering when she would get here," the vampire said. She reached for Rider''s face and drew a razor sharp nail across her skin.

Rider didn't know why she felt scared. She was used to vampires. But there was something unnerving about this one.

"Are you Drusilla?" she asked.

"Yes, dearie. I am the one you came to search for. And I have so much planned for us..."

Rider suddenly didn't think this was a good idea. She was wondering why she had come here. It had seemed like a perfectly rational idea at the time, somehow. Yeah, definitely a good idea to drive for almost a full day to pick up a vampire. What was she even doing here? She was going to get killed. Not that being stupid and reckless was particularly out of character for her, but this was strange. Even she didn't usually make decisions this bad.

"What's going on?" she asked. "You know what's happening. I know you do. So why don't you tell me?"

"Silly, girl. Thinks she can bargain. You can't. I could kill you in a heartbeat. And I would as well. Don't you know that?"

Rider did know that. She knew she couldn't fight off a vampire, especially not one as old as Drusilla. Even Damien had scared her, when she was younger, and he had nothing on Drusilla. Her heart was pounding. She saw Drusilla smile, and knew she could hear it.

"Will you help me?" Drusilla asked.

"Fine, whatever. As long as I don't have to kill anyone," Rider said. She couldn't get out of here unless Drusilla let her. That really hit her then. There was nowhere she go could go, nothing she could do. And she'd got into this all by herself. The thing was, she just couldn't work out why. Drusilla started walking in a different direction, and Rider followed her, knowing there was no chance to get away.

* * *

Spike drifted in and out of slumber, dreams beginning to invade his waking mind. But of course, these weren't ordinary dreams. He was seeing her all the time now, a constant presence in his mind. Her whispers never ceased. He knew she wasn't real, wasn't really here. Knew he was alone. In his own bed, in the Hyperion Hotel. He wasn't down in a well in the dark, and she wasn't really with him. But telling himself those things had no effect. No matter how true he knew these things to be, no matter how much he tried to stay aware of his reality, it didn't feel like the truth. He felt her there, and that was enough.

He didn't know why she was here. She shouldn't be here, he'd copied the tape, this was supposed to stop it! Why wasn't it stopping?

He closed his eyes, hoping to make the visions leave, but of course they only got worse. Was this what it was like for Drusilla? She'd had visions of the future ever since she was small... how could she possibly deal with it? Spike couldn't. This reminded him of the time after he had regained his soul, when he had been hiding down in the basement, right above the Hellmouth. This was as bad as that, or a least close. Only difference was, this time it was a ghost girl instead of the First.

He didn't want to listen to her. There wasn't much point anyway, he couldn't even hear what she was saying. She was like white noise. Spike wanted to get away and run, but even if he'd been in a condition to do so, it wouldn't help. She wasn't the usual type of ghost, restricted to the place of her death. She was haunting him, if anything.

She stood, or appeared to stand, right in front of him, at the foot of his bed. She didn't move. She wasn't trying to do anything, like she had done when she appeared in Damien's basement. She was just there. Spike didn't know why she had helped him back there, and she wasn't giving him answers. Somehow, it didn't seem at all comforting that she wanted to help him. It just made him wonder what she wanted him alive for.


	11. Chapter Eleven

_**The Ghost's Curse**_

 _Chapter Eleven_

* * *

The silence of the room was oppressive, total. Nothing stirred. Rider sat on the couch, legs crossed beneath her. Drusilla stood beside her, leaning on the arm rest. Her face was close to Rider's, her dark hair brushing Rider's cheek. It itched like hell, but Rider didn't dare move paralysed by her fear. It was a long time since she'd been alone with a vampire she knew wouldn't hesitate to kill her. It was the only time she'd ever been alone with an insane vampire.

She stared at the phone in her hand. She still couldn't believe a vampire owned a cell phone, especially a vampire like Drusilla, with her Victorian style clothes and poetic way of speaking. It just seemed wrong. It occurred to Rider that she didn't really have to do what Drusilla said. She could call anyone; she could get someone to help her. But who would she call? There was no one she knew who'd care about her. She dialled the number Drusilla had written out for her. The phone rang twice, and then Spike picked up.

"Hello?" His voice sounded different. Almost... afraid. What could make a vampire afraid? Rider didn't want to know.

"Um, hi," she said. "Uh... Drusilla told me to call you."

"Dru?" He suddenly seemed more alert. "You found her?"

"Uh... I think she sorta found me. Whatever. She wants you to come over here. Apparently she needs all of us for... something. Said the girl wants you, but she doesn't know why. I don't know what she's talking about, but whatever, you might." Rider realised she was babbling now, but was powerless to stop it.

"The girl?"

"Yeah. The girl. Don't know which girl, she won't say anything. She just told me to tell you to come over here, that's pretty much all she'll say."

"Has she hurt you?"

"No... At least, not yet." Rider was caught off guard by the question. Why did Spike care if she was hurt? She was nothing to him. They'd only met a week ago, he shouldn't care whether she lived or died. In fact, if anything, he should _want_ to kill her. That was what vampires did. They hurt people, and they killed them, and they treated them like nothing but toys. That was Rider's experience. But she was starting to get the idea that Spike was a strange vampire.

"Good. I'll see if I can drive over soon. Where are you?"

"We're at Shelter Mountain Inn, in Washington. I can give you directions."

"Shelter Mountain? That's the place the girl died, right? And bloody hell, you want me to come to Washington?"

"Is it too far?"

"Might be, when I'm injured. Don't know if I can drive that long. Maybe I could convince Angel to come, so I could rest. 'Sides, I need to use his car anyway. Doubt he'll want me driving it."

"So you'll come here?"

"Sure. How's Dru doing?"

Rider looked at Drusilla beside her, head tilted in a birdlike fashion, as if she was listening to something. "I think she's fine," Rider said.

"That's good. I was worried."

"Why?" Rider asked before she could stop herself.

"Why? What do you mean why? Because—" Spike stopped, seeming to realise that he didn't know. "Huh. You know what, that really doesn't make sense when I say it like that. I mean, it's not like she can't take care of herself. I just mean, I still care about her, you know. Don't want her to get hurt. Or end the world."

"End the world?"

"Yeah, she tried to do that back when we came to Sunnydale. Well, her and Angel. There was this Acathla thing..."

"I don't even know what you're talking about. Just get over here, okay. Drusilla's really starting to freak me out."

* * *

Spike packed some bags of blood into a rucksack, along with a battered paperback copy of _Persuasion,_ a packet of crisps, a bottle of liquor and a pack of cigarettes. He pulled the bag onto his back, then walked out of the room, limping slightly as he walked down the hallway. He held tightly onto the banister as he walked down the stairs, feeling off balance and trying not to fall. Angel was waiting in the lobby of the hotel, sharpening an axe.

"Where are you going?" he asked when he saw Spike, putting the axe aside.

"Washington," Spike said. He walked past Angel, ignoring him.

"What? But you're injured. And—Washington? Why are you going to Washington?" Angel stood up and followed Spike. He caught up with him in a couple of strides.

"That's where Dru is. Gotta go find her."

"Find her and what? Bring her here?"

"Yeah. I know you don't like her staying here, but it's the best place. At least we can keep an eye on her."

"Keep an eye on her? You say that like she's a child we need to take care of. She's a killer, Spike."

"Are the two mutually exclusive? She doesn't like being left alone, you know that. She said something about the ghost; I think that's the reason she's out there. Samara. She wants me to come by for some reason, I don't really get it. But it's something to do, you know? Better than just sitting on my arse."

"You can't go all the way to Washington. You're still injured."

Spike scoffed. "Hardly. I've healed a ton, just in the last night. It's not like I'm planning to walk to Washington—I'm just gonna drive there. And I have to go. Dru didn't call me herself. Rider did. She's alone with Drusilla, and I don't think Dru would have any qualms about killing her. We might get there in time to make sure nothing bad happens." It didn't make a whole of sense now that he'd said it aloud, but he didn't care. He was hardly going to tell Angel the real reason that he wanted to go. He wasn't going to tell him about those visions that were supposed to have stopped. The visions that were playing on his mind like a song stuck in his head.

"Where'd you leave the keys, anyway?" Spike asked as he neared the door.

"The keys... You mean you're taking my car?"

"Well, yeah. Not like I've got another one, is it?"

"Didn't you steal that bike a few weeks ago?"

"Oh, what, you mean the one I crashed after two days? Yeah, no, I don't have that anymore. It's scrap metal now. Anyway, I'll need a car if I want to be travelling during the day." Spike walked outside. The sun had only gone down a while ago, and the sky was still light. The moon was full, and shining brightly already against the blue. Only a few stars were visible so early.

As he turned to walk away, he felt something hit the back of his head. He looked around and saw the keys on the floor. "Thanks," he said, smirking.

"Just be careful." Angel turned back into the hotel, leaving Spike alone. The door slammed shut with a startling sound.

* * *

It was day by the time Spike got to the cabin. He wasn't going to risk going out in the sun anytime soon, not after what happened last time. He'd sleep in the car for a while. He reached for the bottle of whiskey he'd taken with him, went to take a gulp, then realised it was empty. He opened the window and hurled it out, not caring that his face got burnt.

He lay back, spread out over both seats. He'd been driving all night, and for half the day too. He was so tired he felt dead. Yet sleep still eluded him. _She_ wouldn't let him sleep. And trying to sleep, doing nothing, just made him more vulnerable to her. He looked up, outside the window where he'd thrown the empty bottle. Did he dare to walk through the sunlight again? He thought about walking home from Damien's, his skin burning...

Screw it. Forget about the pain, he was going anyway. He picked up his bag, then threw open the driver's side door and ran for it. His skin sizzled and burned, stinging at first, soon becoming searing pain. He rushed into the cabin, rolling on the floor to extinguish the flames. He caught sight of his hands, reddened and peeling. It was only a mild burn, though. It'd heal soon enough.

He got to his feet. Rider sat at the other side of the room, on the floor. Drusilla was curled up asleep on the sofa, hair in her face. Spike wondered what she was dreaming about. Wondered if Samara had as much control over her dreams as she did over his own.

Rider raised an eyebrow at him. "You couldn't wait until sundown, huh?"

Spike shot her a glare. She was so annoying, how was it Dru hadn't killed her yet? He would have. "What am I here for again?"

Rider shrugged. "I don't know. She won't tell me. She won't tell me why I'm here either. She won't let me leave, but hasn't killed me yet. Makes me think she needs me for something, but I can't work out what."

Spike frowned. Why did Dru need a witch? He'd have to ask her. She might not tell Rider anything, but that didn't mean she wouldn't tell him. Didn't mean she would either. He looked around the room, trying to find something he could do until she woke up. He remembered the book he'd put in his bag, and took it out. He downed some of the blood too, grimacing as he did so. Cold, coagulated blood was an abomination.

He'd nearly finished the book by the time the sun went down. He barely even noticed it until Rider got up to turn the light on. He put the book aside and stood up, stretching. He walked over to the window, and pulled the curtain aside. All was black outside, stars bright in the sky, the nearly-full moon invisible beneath the clouds. A tree stood nearby, branches blowing softly in the wind. Spike could just make out the red colour of the leaves.

There were footsteps, and Drusilla came to stand beside him. She was just out of his sight, but he knew it was her.

"I know why you came," she said. She didn't move. Didn't try to touch for him, or reach out to him. Just stood still as a corpse. It made Spike feel cold, alone.

"Of course you do. It was you who called me here. Well, Rider did, but you were the one who told her to, right?"

"That wasn't what I meant."

Spike turned to look at her. Her face was relaxed, almost expressionless, but her eyes glistened, a sadness to them. He didn't know what she was thinking of.

"No. I know," he said. "You meant because of her."

Drusilla nodded, her eyes growing wider. "The lovely child who was cast out. Samara. You want to know what she wants with you. Why she won't let you go."

Spike didn't say a word. There was no point in denying what Drusilla was saying; she knew the truth.

"You gonna give us any answers?" he asked her. "'Cause we don't even know what we're here for." His voice was far too angry. He didn't mean it to be—he just wanted to know what was happening. It had been a while seen he'd had even the slightest idea.

"Isn't it clear?" Drusilla asked. "She wants more. She wants what you got to have."

"What I got? A soul?" Spike said.

Drusilla laughed, a strange sound in the somber surroundings. "No, not _that_. She already has a soul. A soul is almost all she is, after all. What could a ghost without a soul be? No, she doesn't want a soul."

"Then what the bleeding hell _does_ she want?"

"A second chance..." Drusilla whispered. "To live again. To be what she never had the chance to become."

Live again... Did Drusilla really mean what he thought she meant? Was she really planning to bring the girl back to life? It didn't seem likely, but Spike knew it was possible. Usually, magic couldn't bring the dead back to life. Willow had brought Buffy back, but that was an exception. Willow was extremely powerful, and even she'd been pushing herself. But he knew the reason for it being so hard, and so dangerous, was because the person's spirit would have already passed on. A ghost, on the other hand, with their spirit still bound to the earth... It just might be possible.

He looked back at Rider, who he knew had been listening into their conversation. Wasn't like there was much else to do. She was gazing intently at Drusilla, as if she couldn't believe what she was saying.

"Hear that, pet? Know what she wanted you here for now?"

Rider seemed to take a minute to realise what he was saying. "No. She can't expect me to bring her back. I don't have access to that kind of power. I'd just end up creating a zombie, or..."

"It isn't as hard as you think, you know. She's already here. All you have to do is make her breathe," Drusilla said. She was sounding strangely lucid. Spike wasn't sure he liked that. Ordinarily, it would be a good thing, but right now he wasn't sure if it was due to the ghost's influence.

"She's right," Spike said. "The worry isn't that you'd fail to bring her back. It's that this might not be such a good idea to start with. What exactly is she going to be like when she comes back? She's a killer. Maybe we could have done this once, but I think that girl is just too far gone."

"You say she's a killer. So were you," Drusilla said. "Angel was worse. I know. More than anyone else, I know..."

"Are you really sure about this?" Rider asked. "It doesn't sound like a good idea to bring back a killer ghost. Unless she'd lose her power when she's alive or something."

"Not this one," Spike said. "If anything, being alive might make her stronger. It could make her weaker, but not completely. Her powers are organic. There's no losing them." He turned to Dru. "Why do you want to bring her back, anyway, love? I don't get it."

"She needs my help. She thinks we can help her."

"Why do you want to help her though? You don't normally help people. You hurt them. Why is this one different?"

Drusilla's brows creased, and she tilted her head. "I can't say. I just... I want to help her. Please, Spike. Let me help the girl."

The wide eyes silently begging to him didn't let Spike say no. He knew this wasn't a good idea, but what harm could it do really? The girl might keep on killing, but she was doing that anyway. It wasn't like resurrecting her would actually make her more dangerous.

* * *

Drusilla watched Spike and Rider from her perch upon a mausoleum. Spike was digging. Rider was preparing the spell. Drusilla would have preferred to do the spell within the cabin, where the girl had died. But they needed her body, and it wasn't were it should have been. She had been buried after her body was found in the well. Which meant they'd had to go to the cemetery and dig her up. All without being seen. Drusilla was the lookout. And it certainly wasn't just because she didn't want to get dirt on her dress, not at all.

Spike straightened up, throwing the shovel aside.

"Have you finished?" Drusilla asked, her voice high and quick, like a child excited for their birthday.

"Yeah," Spike said. "The shovel just struck the casket. We found her."

"Bring her out then!" Drusilla said. She sat on the edge of the mausoleums roof, only her vampiric grace keeping her from falling onto the earth below.

Spike dragged the casket out of the ground. It was so small, almost like it could be meant for one of Drusilla's dolls. Drusilla leaped down from the roof of the mausoleum and came to face the girl. She didn't look lovely or beautiful, as she should have. She was dead. But she wouldn't be for long.

"Rider. You ready?" Spike asked.

"Hardly. I really don't think I can do this. I mean, look at her! She's just a skeleton!"

"Just try though, yeah? How hard could it be? It's just the same as healing, right?"

Rider looked at Spike. "Yeah, it's just like an incredibly difficult and complicated healing spell. You know, in the same way that writing the entire Lord of the Rings Trilogy is so much like a kid's English class work."

Rider took Samara's skeleton from the casket and began the spell. Drusilla watched, interested, while Spike skulked at the edges of the cemetery, still holding the shovel, as if he intended to fight off some demons. Drusilla knew there wasn't anything around though, and he was probably just bored. Drusilla wasn't bored. Her pretty, powerful girl was getting what she wanted. She couldn't be more pleased.

Rider seemed to have fallen into a trance. Her eyes were unfocused and wide, and the chanting coming from her mouth seemed utterly unlike her own voice. But Drusilla's attention was on the child. She was no longer nothing but bones. Before Drusilla's eyes she changed, the bones becoming covered in flesh, and smooth, unblemished skin. Long dark hair flowed down her back, contrasting with her pale skin and clothes. Her heart was beating, almost impossibly loud in Drusilla's ears. She was alive.


	12. Chapter Twelve

**_The Ghost's Curse_**

 _Chapter Twelve_

* * *

"So, what, is that it?" Spike asked. The girl was alive, sure—she was breathing. But she didn't seem to be moving a whole lot. "That's all you could do?"

Rider narrowed her eyes. "Yes. That's it. I already told you, I can't bring back the dead. Not really. Your girlfriend seemed pretty sure I could, but I don't think it's worked. Look at her! Does she look alive to you?"

She looked at the girl before her, lying so still. She looked asleep, but Rider knew this was more than mere sleep. She was dead. Yes, Rider had brought life back to her body, but without a spirit to animate it, that life was meaningless. There was nothing Rider could do to make her spirit return to her. Nothing.

"So, this was all bloody pointless, wasn't it?" Spike said. "Hey! Ghost kid! You hear that? We tried, we failed. No more bothering us now." If the ghost could hear him, she gave no indication.

There was a giggle, too close, and Rider whirled around to see Drusilla right behind her. She could feel cool breath on her face as Drusilla laughed.

"It hasn't finished," Drusilla said. "There is more to come."

Rider didn't have a clue what she meant by that. More to come? More of what?

"So, what do we do now?" she asked Drusilla.

"We wait," Drusilla whispered. "Now it's up to her. We have done all that we can, for now. It's her turn."

Rider wasn't sure what they were waiting for, but the idea of it set her teeth on edge. Why had she ever come out here? She shouldn't be here. She should be back in her apartment, safe from the outside world full of vampires and ghosts and goddess knew what else. Back in her apartment, in her own bed, waiting until Damien finally decided to set the whole apartment block on fire. He'd done that once before. Rider had been the only one to get out alive.

Maybe this place wasn't so bad after all.

They sat for several hours, Rider and Spike both growing increasingly impatient. Rider sat, and fidgeted, holding her arms around her in a vain attempt to keep warm. Spike moved around, like a predator looking for something to catch and kill. Drusilla just sat, seeming completely unconcerned by the emptiness of the moment. In her stillness, she barely looked alive at all.

The air grew colder. Rider's teeth chattered, and her hair stood on end. She wished she'd brought a coat. She noticed the vampires both looked unconcerned. She guessed they couldn't really sense temperature that much, being dead. Something wet landed on Rider's head. She thought it was snow at first—it seemed cold enough—but it was rain. The rain got stronger, as if the sky was weeping. In mere seconds, all of them were soaked to the bone.

She looked at the girl. Samara was just as wet as they all were. For a moment, Rider wonder if she'd get hypothermia. Then she remembered that it didn't matter—the girl was pretty much dead anyway.

But then Rider saw her eyes open.

It was just for a moment. After that they were closed just as they had been before. Rider thought she might have been imagining it. But Rider didn't imagine things. That was one thing she knew.

The child was alive. Her eyes opened again, and they didn't close this time. She looked around wildly for a moment, before her gaze focused on Drusilla.

"Mommy..." the child whispered.

* * *

Samara looked around wildly, trying to find something, anything, that she recognised. Where was she? It looked like a graveyard. But only a minute ago, she'd been... somewhere else. In the dark place. Her only home for years since her death, that she hated more than anything. She didn't know this place. She didn't want to be here. But she didn't know where she wanted to be. Not home—she hadn't had any home apart from the well for a long time. She hadn't had any home.

She wrapped her arms tightly around Drusilla, allowed herself to be picked up. Drusilla would protect her. She knew that. Drusilla wouldn't abandon her like Anna and Rachel had. She'd care about her. She wouldn't get scared of Samara like everyone else always had. No one like her could get scared. She'd be perfect. She'd let Samara have a real life.

"Bloody hell," she heard Spike mutter. "Rider really did it. She brought a ghost back to life."

Spike would help her too, or try. That was what he did. Him and the other one, Angel. Vampires with souls, who helped people. How strange. Everyone knew who they were, even Samara. At least, she had known since Spike had watched the tape. She knew a lot about them now. Knew about what they were, who they used to be. They could help her. They could help her be better.

"I can't believe it..." Rider said. Samara turned towards her, and Rider looked away quickly. Samara didn't need Rider any more. Maybe she should kill her. Or maybe she didn't need to. That was why she was here, wasn't it? She wanted to stop killing. To live how people were supposed to live. That was what she wanted.

Samara had found Drusilla to help her because she wanted to live again. She didn't want to pretend, like she had last time when she had stolen Aidan's body. She wanted to live, really live. She wanted the life that she should never have lost. She wanted to stop needing to hurt everyone. She was sure it couldn't be too hard; everyone else managed. Even Spike, and he was a vampire. Even his friend Angel, who had been even worse. She could do it. And she could start by not killing Rider now. Letting her go.

"Are we gonna go back now? I don't much care for standing in the rain getting drenched all night!" Spike called out.

Drusilla put Samara down, and they started walking back. Samara held tight to Drusilla's hand. Was this real? It felt too much like a dream. Something that she could wake up from at any moment. But Samara knew this was no dream; she never slept. How could she dream? Everything she felt right now, all of this was real. It was perfect. She had someone who wanted to protect her, someone to keep her safe. That was something she'd always needed, but had hardly ever got.

* * *

Spike kicked his boots off as he entered the cabin and flopped down on the bed, exhausted and drenched. Well, the impossible had happened—Rider had brought a dead girl back to life. The witch was gone now, back to LA, he thought. He almost envied her. Drusilla was in the next room, Samara with her. If he was honest with himself, Spike wasn't sure what to think of the spell working. Was it really a good idea to bring a psychopathic, murderous ghost back from the dead? Screw that, was it really a good idea to let Drusilla take care of a child?

Dru had tried to take care of things before. Flowers, birds, puppies, rats, kittens, even human children... every time she had failed. She'd forgotten to feed them—forgotten they needed feeding. Sometimes she'd ended up killing them, slitting their throats when she grew bored. Spike wondered what would happen if Dru ended up killing Samara. Would she become a ghost again? If so, would she try to hurt Dru? Spike couldn't let that happen. But what could he do, to save her from a ghost? Even if this ghost's curse did seem to have rules, it didn't mean she couldn't break them.

They'd got back tomorrow, to Angel and the hotel. Spike would be glad to get out of this place. He had no psychic ability whatsoever, far as he knew, but even he could feel the hate and the pain that stained this place like dried-up blood. Even Sunnydale didn't feel as evil as this place did, and that was a bloody Hellmouth. Spike didn't even want to think about what could have happened here. What that girl had done, all without meaning to... If she could drive people insane by accident, what could that kid do on purpose? Spike didn't know. He wasn't sure he wanted to.

He shouldn't have let Dru do this. He just hadn't thought that it could possibly succeed. He thought it would be harmless, and when it failed, Drusilla would be upset, and he would comfort her... but it couldn't be like that. It couldn't possibly be like that anymore. Dru wouldn't just be upset, she'd be murderous. She'd kill Rider. And after that... Spike wasn't sure what he'd think. He didn't care about Rider—not any more than he cared about any random person. But Dru... no one could ever mean as much to him as Drusilla once had. Not even Buffy, though she did come pretty damn close. What would he do? He thought about what Angel had said to him, about Drusilla staying with them. And now they had another killer with them—Samara. What could they do now, really? Spike knew they shouldn't just keep them around, but he couldn't think of anything else that would work.

He finally managed to get to sleep. To his relief, for the first time in over a week, he didn't dream.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

**_The Ghost's Curse_**

 _Chapter Thirteen_

* * *

The engine purred lazily as they sat, stuck in traffic. There was no music on—Drusilla had told Spike to turn of 'that dreadful noise'. He wasn't so sure that Minor Threat was dreadful, but it was Dru. So they drove in silence. Samara sat in the back-seat, staring out of the window. It must have been a long time since she'd travelled in a car. Spike had neither mentioned her at all, nor tried to speak to her. It wasn't going to get him anywhere. The kid hardly spoke at all.

Samara wasn't moving at all as she sat, and stared. Spike would almost doubt she was alive if he couldn't hear her heartbeat, loud in his ears through the near silence. He still didn't quite know what the hell she was playing at, getting Dru to help her, to bring her back to life. He couldn't understand it. But it wasn't his job to understand some psycho former ghost. The only thing he was trying to do was protect Drusilla. And, of course, the rest of the entire world. Because protecting the entire world wasn't difficult at all.

Spike growled. The cars still weren't moving. How long were they going to be bloody stuck here? It seemed eternal. Good thing he wasn't getting any older. Saying that, when was sunrise? Couldn't be too far off now. At least they were getting close to LA. With any luck, wouldn't be more than an hour. But that was long enough, so close to dawn.

"Are we there yet?" Came Samara's small voice from the back-seat. It startled Spike—it was the first time he'd heard her speak, apart from her voice on the phone after he'd seen the tape.

"We would be there, if we could get out of this bloody traffic jam!" Spike roared.

A whimper behind him, and suddenly Spike's head was filled with images, all superimposing onto one another, blurring into the visual equivalent of white noise... and then it stopped. He turned. Samara was sitting there with her hands over her ears. Guess she didn't like shouting then. He sighed. He guessed he was going to have to get used to her and her powers. Didn't seem like she had much control over them. He wondered if that would be a problem.

The traffic let up a minute later and Spike accelerated, tearing down the road at 90 miles per hour. He needed to get back already. There couldn't be any risk of him or Dru bursting into flames on the way back. He was really sick of being set on fire.

* * *

They got to the hotel just as the sun was beginning to rise, painting molten gold and blood into the grey sky. Spike got out of the car, leaving the door open in his haste to get in. He made sure Drusilla got out quickly too. They needed to get inside. He didn't worry about Samara—he knew she'd follow. Samara walked up to the gate slowly, trailing behind Spike and Drusilla.

"Is this home?" she asked, once they had reached the door.

"For now," Spike said. He walked in ahead of them.

Angel was sleeping in the lobby, spread out on the couch, a blanket half over him. His face was calm and clear of all expression. He looked so peaceful, as if he didn't have a care in the world. Spike walked up and pushed him off the couch.

"Hey! What was that for?" Angel scrambled to his feet, tossing aside the tangled up blanket.

"What were you asleep on the couch for? You have a bed, don't you?"

"That's not the point." Angel said. "I was waiting for you and Drusilla. But now I see you're here, so—who's that?" He frowned, looking straight at Samara. Damn it. Spike had almost hoped he wouldn't notice her. "Does she need our help or something?"

"Yep," Spike said. "That's exactly why she's here. She's just a girl, who needs our help. Nothing else. She's definitely not dangerous or anything."

"So... what exactly is she here for?" Angel asked. "Is it to do with that tape thing you've been looking at recently?"

"Er... I guess you could say it's something to do with it, yeah," Spike said. He hesitated to actually lie, though he didn't know why. It wasn't like lying was the worst thing he'd done; it should be nothing to him. Maybe it was just because he was a bad liar. Yeah, that might be it. Not that he'd ever admit to anyone out loud.

"So what are we going to do with her?" Angel asked.

"Well, er... she was just gonna stay here for a while, you know..."

"Why?"

"Because she doesn't have anywhere else to go, why else? Really, Angel, there's this thing called inference, you might want to try it. Why would we take her here if she had somewhere else to stay?" That much, at least, was true. Samara really didn't have anywhere else to go, unless they'd wanted to stay at Shelter Mountain Inn. Maybe they should have done that, but Spike didn't see the point. Why would they stay there, when there was so much more to do in LA? But then, why stay in LA? The only reason he could think was because of Angel.

He didn't want to admit it, but Angel seemed to be the only thing close to a tie he had here. There was nothing else holding him here. He might have hated Angel, but he was the only thing close to family he'd had for a while. But he didn't need him now. He had Drusilla. And they had Samara. So why stay here? There was anywhere else they could go. London, Paris, New York... Maybe the other Hellmouth, up in Cleveland. Might be they could do some good there. Not that Drusilla or Samara were really the kind of people who did good, but...

"Is there something..."

"What?"

"That girl... she seems strange. Is she all right?"

Spike frowned. "I don't even know what you're trying to say. Of course she's fine. What would be wrong with her?"

"She just... seems odd. She seems..." Angel paused, as if having trouble deciding what to say. "Hurt."

"Hurt? Are you off your rocker? You'd be able to tell if she was injured, you'd be able to smell the blood as soon as she walked. Of course she isn't hurt."

"That's not exactly what I meant," Angel said, not taking his gaze off of Samara. She stared back at him from beneath her hair, her big brown eyes surprisingly intimidating. Spike knew what Angel meant. Not that she was physically hurt—they'd know if that was the case. But that she was scarred, emotionally. Just like Dru.

"Come on, Samara," Spike said. "Let's go find a room for you." He started walking. Samara didn't follow at first, not until Drusilla did. She never seemed to want to leave Dru's side. Almost like she was afraid she disappear if she left her alone. Strangely, Drusilla seemed to be treating Samara much the same way.

* * *

Samara sat on the bed, left alone for the first time. Spike had gone away as soon as they'd found the room. Drusilla would have stayed if Samara had asked her to. She thought that strange. Someone who actually wanted to be with her. The last person that could have been was Anna. Rachel had never liked her, not really. She'd just felt sorry for her. Even that was better than how most people felt about her.

Samara didn't really like to be alone, but she needed some time to think. Everything was so different now. Everything she felt. It was real, real life. Something she'd missed more than she'd thought. She could feel her heart beating. She could smell the musty scent of the old hotel. And everything seemed somehow more colourful.

She could hardly believe this had actually happened. But now that it had, she wasn't sure what to do. The world around her felt so real, but she didn't. She still felt out of place, like she always had. She didn't fit in here any better than she had before. And the way Angel had looked at her... She knew that look. He was afraid. She didn't know how, or why, but he could sense that she was dangerous. She'd have to live with a lot of people reacting the same way. And she could never be around animals. She could never have a normal life.

But she was still going to try.

* * *

Drusilla woke early in the evening. She heard a knocking, but wasn't sure where it was coming from. Perhaps it was part of her dream. It wouldn't be unusual for her to mistake a dream for being real. She turned over, and tried to get back to sleep. The knocking didn't cease. She threw aside the covers and stood. The knocking was at the door. Perhaps it was Spike. But no. She'd know if it were him. It was Samara.

She put on a dressing gown, before opening the door. Samara stood in the hallway outside.

Drusilla smiled. "Hello, sweetling. What is it that you want?"

"I want to go out," Samara said. She stood so still, her intent, focused gaze on Drusilla. But Drusilla wasn't afraid of her. There were much scarier things around than this child. Samara could never be that frightening to someone who had survived Angelus's torture. Not that she had really survived. It wasn't like she'd ever got away from him.

"Where do you want to go, Samara?" Drusilla asked.

Samara paused. She shrugged. "Could we go get ice cream?" she asked.

"I don't see why not. Will Spike come?"

Samara shook her head. "I don't want him to come. I want it to just be us.."

"All right then. Let me get ready." Drusilla turned back into her room, leaving Samara waiting outside. She put on her dress, and ran a brush through he hair. She laced her boots, and then left the room. She stopped as they passed by Spike's room. He was sleeping. She grabbed his coat from the foot of the bed—it wasn't like he was using it while he was asleep. And there was money in the pockets, which Drusilla needed.

She and Samara left the silent hotel, walking out into the warm night. Although the sun had set, it was still light out. To light for Drusilla's eyes. She belonged in the darkness. But Samara didn't.

They had a long way to walk. They got to the park, and there was miraculously still an ice-cream truck outside on the road. Drusilla could see why. The street here was lined with houses opposite the park. If there were going to be children wanting ice-cream anywhere, it was going to be here. Drusilla got the ice cream for Samara. One of those ones with the flakes of chocolate in them. Thet sat down on the bench outside the park.

Samara's eyes were darting around. She didn't like being somewhere where there were other people. They'd have to work on that, Drusilla thought. if she was really going to live, she should see other people, not just her and Spike. She wondered whether they could really do this. Samara was hardly a normal child, and even hey were difficult enough. Samara was something else entirely. But Drusilla couldn't just leave her, like she had been left so many times before. She needed to help her. It was all she could do.

* * *

Damien left the apartment, growling swear words under his breath. Rider wasn't there. It was a shame. He could have done with blowing off some steam. Torturing her seemed like a pretty good way to go. It was about time he killed. He didn't know why he never had before. Because he liked her? That couldn't be it. Maybe he was just used to her.

He stalked along the path through the woods, his old boots kicking up dust from the sun-baked earth. He was going the long way tonight. Maybe it would help him clear his head. Maybe he'd meet someone else he could kill. The path ended a short distance from a park. Perfect. It couldn't be too hard to grab one of the kids, bring them into the woods and bite them.

But then he saw something that made his blood run cold. Or would have, had his blood been warm to start with.

There were two people on a bench nearby. A woman and a girl. But Damien could tell it wasn't just any mother and daughter. He could smell Spike's scent on both of them. And he swore that woman was familiar...

The child turned her head, to face him. Even from a distance, the force of her gaze made him turn away. Who was this girl? Why hadn't the woman killed her? Because Damien knew she was a vampire, even if he couldn't quite tell who she was. So why was she keeping the kid around, instead of just eating her?

Maybe Rider would know. Damien had been planning to track her down to kill her anyway. Why not ask her some questions first?


	14. Chapter Fourteen

_**The Ghost's Curse**_

 _Chapter Fourteen_

* * *

The night was cool—or what passed for cool in southern California, at least. Which, come to think of it, was bloody warm. Good thing vampires weren't really bothered by the temperature. Spike put out his cigarette on one of the gravestones. Drusilla had asked him to come here; he didn't know why. She was sitting on the crumbling wall of the decaying churchyard.

Samara had stayed back at the hotel with Angel. Spike wasn't sure why Drusilla hadn't wanted her to come with them—they'd barely left each others side since Samara had been resurrected. They'd had to go shopping earlier, having had no food. Something Drusilla had forgotten again. Spike chuckled slightly at the thought of Angel trying to take care of Samara. He was still scared of her. And Angel barely even knew what there was to be afraid of, not like Spike did. If anyone was afraid, it should be him.

"You gonna tell me why we came out here?" Spike asked. They'd been standing out here for almost half an hour, and Drusilla had barely spoken. She was just looking out into the distance, as if there was something she could see that was nothing but air to Spike.

"Can you see the stars?" she asked, still not clarifying.

"'Course I can, love. Sky's clear as anything out here, in the middle of nowhere. No pollution, or whatever," Spike said.

"They sing to me…" she whispered.

"I can't hear them."

Spike walked over to her and sat beside her. He placed his hand over hers, savouring the silken feel of her cold skin. A long time ago, he would have done a lot more than just touched her hand, but it had been a long time since they'd been together. He felt strangely cautious.

They sat there in silence, watching the sky. Spike might not be able to hear the stars like Drusilla said she could, but he could see them. Tiny specks, light-years away, far more visible than they ever would be within the glowing city.

There was so much more they still needed to talk about. They had changed so much. Spike had even got a soul. They could never go back to how they had been. Before... before any of this had happened. Everything was too different. But he wanted to. He wanted to turn back time, for everything to be the way it had been before they'd ever even gone to Sunnydale.

But he couldn't do that. He had to be realistic. Sure, they seemed to be getting along fine so far. They hadn't had any big rows at least. But that didn't mean anything. Things were too different. _They_ were too different. Not just compared to how they'd been before, but compared to each other now. They used to be so similar as to be the same. But now they were separate, they were different. Spike fought demons. Drusilla was one of them. They couldn't just go back.

"What did we come out here for, pet?" Spike asked again.

Drusilla answered him this time, not avoiding the question with more talk about the stars. "I wanted to get out. Out of that nasty hotel. I don't like it there. Angel's always there."

"Well, he does live there," Spike said. "Much as we might wish he didn't."

"And I wanted to be with you."

"That so?" He frowned, caught of guard. Why did she want to see him? He thought she'd only gone to him so he could help Samara, but maybe there was something else. Maybe she really did want to see him again. Be a family again, like she'd said that last time they'd seen each other back in Sunnydale. Could that work? He wanted it to. More than anything, he wanted it to. But he wasn't sure of it at all.

"Do you still think about her?" Drusilla asked, looking up at him.

"Who's that?" Spike asked, but he didn't have to. He knew who she meant. Buffy Summers, the Slayer. The girl who had haunted his dreams every day back in Sunnydale. The woman who had fought by his side. The one he had died for.

It wasn't like they could forget about her. She wasn't someone Spike could just forget about—she meant too much to him.

"Yeah," he said, after a silence that was too long. "Yeah, of course I think about her. She meant a lot to me. I can't forget her. Like I could never forget you, either, when I was with her. You're not the same. The way I feel about each of you—it's not the same. But it's just as strong."

"You loved her."

"Yeah."

"How long did it take you to notice?" Drusilla asked.

Spike blinked. "Er... I guess it was..." He tried hard to think. It was hard to remember the exact moment, but something came to him. "It was a little while after I'd got back to Sunnydale again, after... I went to the Initiative with Harmony, to try and get my chip out. And that night... I had a dream. It made me realise. Can't believe it was the first thing that did. Like you said once—you knew before I did. "

"That's right," Dru said.

She went quiet again. Spike didn't dare speak. He didn't know what to say. A hundred years together, and now he couldn't even think what to say to her. It was fucking irritating. A disgrace, that's what it was. He should be able to say exactly what he needed to say to her. But he couldn't think of a single word she'd actually want to hear.

He reached for her. She didn't move away, and let him put his arms around her. For a moment, he could almost pretend things were how they had used to be. Before any of this. But it was only pretending. They were still nearly as far apart as they had been since Drusilla had left him after he'd helped Buffy.

* * *

Samara glared down at the food on the plate in front of her. She poked at it with her fork. None of it was trying to attack her. But it didn't taste edible either.

"What is this?" she asked the vampire, Angel.

"It's food, I guess," he said.

"Yeah, but what food?"

"Um... I think the green stuff is spinach. And there's rice. And little bits of chicken."

"Is the green stuff edible?"

"It should be..."

"It tastes poisonous. Does that mean I don't have to eat it?"

"I'm pretty sure spinach is edible. It's supposed to be good for you. Did you never eat spinach back at home?"

"Sometimes... But that was a long time ago."

Angel frowned. Samara wondered what he was thinking. Spike and Drusilla hadn't told him who she was yet. He thought she was just a normal girl. He couldn't work out why she kept acting so strange. She ate another forkful of the horrible-tasting green stuff, then ate a bit of the chicken and rice. They tasted much better.

The door opened and Samara turned around. Spike and Drusilla walked in together.

"Where'd you go?" Angel asked them as they walked over.

"Out," Spike said, sitting down beside Angel. Drusilla sat beside Samara.

"I got you a present!" Drusilla said. Samara looked up.

"What is it?" she asked.

Drusilla shook her head. "Can't give it to you yet. You have to finish your dinner first."

Samara shovelled another lot of the green stuff down her throat, followed by more chicken. She hadn't realised how hungry she'd been. It was a long time since she'd needed food. Ghost's didn't need to eat. They definitely didn't have to eat soggy green spinach. She finished eating, finishing off the last of the rice and chicken.

"Now you can have your present!" Drusilla said, clapping her hands. "Where did I put it?"

"It's in my coat pocket, love. You gave it to me for safekeeping, remember?" Spike reached into his pocket and took out a small, rectangular object, which he pushed along the table to Samara.

She picked it up. It wasn't anything that special, but it was something Samara hadn't had in a long time. A chocolate bar. She hadn't been given treats like this often back at home, and when she was a ghost... well, no one gave a ghost chocolate, did they?

She opened it up and bit into it, relishing the taste. It was a lot better than the other food she had eaten. Especially the yucky green stuff. She didn't eat all of it—she was going to save the rest for later. It wouldn't be good to waste it all in one go.

"Where did you go?" Samara asked.

Spike answered, "Just a few miles outside of town, to this old abandoned church."

"You were gone a while," Samara said.

"Yeah. We had a lot to talk about." there was something in his expression that confused Samara a bit. She wasn't very good at reading emotions except fear, but he almost seemed... guilty, maybe? Or just upset. Samara couldn't tell. But there was something. Something he was trying to keep to himself. An emotion he didn't want Drusilla or Angel to know. What was it?

* * *

The girl was afraid already, constantly looking over her shoulder. Who could blame her? A dark, quiet night like this. Not time for someone so young to be all alone. And with nowhere else to go... She stopped at the road, looking both ways to make sure there were no cars coming, before walking on across.

Damien almost laughed, but held himself back. That would alert her to his presence. How funny that she could worry about a car hitting her when her doom was far closer. He followed after her, once he was certain he was out of sight. He'd been tailing her for a while. He could just rush straight towards her whenever he wanted, but this was so much more fun sometimes. The anticipation of something was sometimes just as good as the thing itself.

She turned, taking a shortcut through an alley. Damien shook his head. How stupid could she be? He followed, silent as a cat stalking a mouse. He was getting closer to her. He could almost touch her. He let his features morph and bared his fangs as he prepared to attack.

The girl stopped walking. She turned around and crossed her arms, suddenly seeming more angry than afraid. She looked younger up close like this—maybe fourteen or fifteen. There was fire in her wide, brown eyes, but the slight tremble of her lip gave her away. "What are you doing here, Damien?"

Damien widened his eyes. She knew his name. He'd never even seen her before and she knew his name. "Who are you?"

"I'm Annie," she said.

"No, I don't mean you're name. I mean who are you, how do you know my name?"

"I know Rider. From the coven."

"Coven? You're a witch?"

Annie shrugged. "No. More of a pretty dabbler, really. I can levitate a pencil. And that is the total sum of my magical prowess."

Now that she had spoken a bit more, Damien could tell that she was English, like Spike. He trusted her even less with that information. "You're a long way from home, aren't you? What are you doing out here?"

"None of your business," she snapped. She was trying to seem powerful, in control, but her voice cracked at the end of the phrase, betraying her fear. She tried to walk away, but Damien grabbed her wrist, breaking it. She cried out in pain, tears coming to her eyes. Damien pushed her to the ground and she fell to her knees like a ragdoll, cradling her broken wrist. Damien kneeled down to her level, holding her close to him. She tensed up, frozen.

"Did you really think you could just walk away?" Damien whispered into her ear. She recoiled, trying to get away, but Damien was too strong. A perfectly human teenager could never be a match for him.

"No. But it's worth trying, right?" Annie said, her words almost buried beneath her sobs.

"Not really. If the result is just going to be the same, why bother fighting? Why not just give up?" He looked into her tear-filled eyes. They were red and swollen. Her face was a mess. He brushed her hair behind her ear and she grimaced.

Damien leaned in, ready to bite her. He felt the soft skin of her neck, her hair tickling at his face, soft as silk. He bit down, tearing her flesh apart, and sucking the blood out greedily. She screamed in pain, her voice quickly growing hoarse. Soon, her screams turned to whimpers as her life was drawn out of her. Damien could still feel her trying to fight as she grew silent.

He looked down at her, lying there on the ground beneath him, still holding onto life, gasping out breath that couldn't save her. He hadn't drained her completely, so she was still bleeding. The blood ran from her neck and over her collar, quickly soaking her clothes. Damien leaned in close to her face, so close he could feel her weakening breath. It seemed a waste to kill this one.

Barely knowing what he was doing, Damien lifted his own wrist to his mouth and ripped into it, opening the vein so the blood flowed out. Slower than a human's, but enough. He put his wrist to Annie's lips for her to drink. She hardly did, at first, like she didn't want to. Hopes of not becoming a monster like him, he supposed. But she gave in soon. Her will to live was too great. She sucked the blood greedily, like she was drowning and Damien was offering his hand to her. And then, she closed her eyes.

Damien spent a moment looking at her, then picked her up and started to carry her back. He put his coat over her, trying to hide the blood at her neck, all over her. Couldn't do much about his own blood on her mouth, but her hair was in her face. He was sure passers-by would just assume he was helping his drunk girlfriend get home. They wouldn't notice that neither of them were breathing.


	15. Chapter Fifteen

**_The Ghost's Curse_**

 _Chapter Fifteen_

* * *

Drusilla walked with Miss Edith clutched in her arms. Her shoes clacked on the concrete ground. Samara followed behind her at a distance. She was always distant, like she still wasn't used to being around other people.

The park was empty. Why wouldn't it be, in the middle of the night? But Drusilla couldn't bring Samara anywhere during the day. She wished to. She wanted to be able to take Samara here in the day, while it was sunny and she could play with the other children. But that was just dreaming. Drusilla couldn't do that, and she didn't think Samara would want to come out while the place was crowded anyway. She had trouble controlling her powers, and crowds just made it worse.

Drusilla looked back at Samara. She had stopped walking and was sat on the ground, pulling up small handfuls of grass. Drusilla sat beside her.

"Is something wrong?" she asked.

Samara raised her shoulders in a shrug. "Nothing's wrong," she said.

"You seem hurt. Angry. Are you remembering them? The ones who hurt you?"

Samara didn't say anything, but started pulling the grass up a little more aggressively.

"They can't hurt you any more, you know," Drusilla said to her. "They're gone. Now I'm here. And if anyone tried to hurt you, I'd kill them. I'd torture them until they begged me to."

"You really mean that?" Samara asked.

"Of course," Drusilla said. "Why else would I say it?"

Samara shrugged again. "I don't know. But people said they'd protect me before. I felt safe with them. And then... they turned on me. I'm not sure I believe that you won't do the same."

Drusilla reached for her and pulled her into a hug. Samara tensed, as if expecting Dru to hurt her, but then relaxed.

Drusilla noticed a daisy in a handful of grass Samara had just pulled up. "Do you know how to make daisy chains?" she asked.

Samara shook her head. "No. Mommy tried to teach me once, and I almost got it. but now I don't remember. It was too long ago."

"Well, I'll show you then," Drusilla said. She picked a few more daisies, and started making a chain with them.

Samara watched her closely. "That doesn't seem too hard."

"Okay, then... Your turn."

Samara tried to copy her, but it didn't quite work. "I don't think I can do it," she said.

"You just need to practice more. Here." Drusilla held out one she had made and put in on Samara as a headband. She stroked her hair, looking into her eyes. Drusilla didn't know why, but she truly cared about Samara. She wanted to protect her. That was feeling she hadn't had in a while.

She noticed something strange then, a scent in the air. Something wasn't right. She got up, looking around. She swore she could smell something... But she couldn't see a thing. She sniffed the air delicately, like a cat. There was definitely someone here. Drusilla didn't know who it was. But she knew she needed to get Samara away from them.

"We're leaving. Now," she said.

"Why?" Samara asked.

"We have to go... I think we might be in danger."

Samara didn't look scared. Rather, she appeared angry, a strange hardness to her dark eyes. "What's happening?"

"I don't know yet." Drusilla moved forwards, staying quiet, making sure to keep Samara behind her. She needed to find out who it was. It might be nothing. But when was it ever nothing? She followed the scent, making sure to be silent. They walked into the woods. The shady canopy of the trees blocked out most of the moonlight. Drusilla felt Samara grab onto her hand and squeeze tightly. She didn't like dark places. Drusilla had know that from what Samara had shown her. This much darkness reminded her of that well, that awful place... Drusilla felt herself go cold at memories that weren't even hers. How could Samara possibly even be trying to get better?

Drusilla heard something behind her. Very quiet, like someone was trying to sneak up on them. Or like some _thing_ was. Footsteps, quick and regular. It sounded almost like a predatory animal, like a wolf or mountain lion. But there were no wolves or mountain lions in Southern California, and there was something oddly human about the sound of those footfalls. Vampire, she decided. Trying to ambush them.

Drusilla stopped still, listened closely. They were coming closer, possibly not realising Drusilla already knew they were there. Dru looked at Samara, standing by her side as if hiding. "Run along now, sweetling. Back to the park. You wouldn't want to get hurt in these dark woods, would you?"

Samara hesitated, but then ran as Drusilla had told her to. Drusilla heard an angered growl from behind her and whirled around, baring her fangs. The vampire she beheld seemed familiar, but she didn't know where from. He lunged for her, and she danced out of the way.

"It's not very nice to hurt little children," Drusilla said. She thought it was Samara he'd been following. Not just for a meal, she could sense that in his mind. But what he wanted her for, she didn't know.

"We're vampires. We're not nice."

"True, that," Drusilla said, nodding. "But you're still not going to hurt this one. She's mine."

"We'll see," he said.

He lunged again, and Drusilla blocked easily, grabbing his arm and snapping it. He howled with pain, then snarled at her. He swung a punch at her and she didn't dodge in time, her lip splitting open against one of her teeth. She managed to catch the vampire, and threw him to the ground. He landed on his broken arm, and on his head. She heard a sharp intake of breath, but he didn't scream this time.

He looked up in another direction, as if he could see something Drusilla hadn't noticed. Then he took off running. Drusilla couldn't think of why at first. Then it came to her. Samara.

She dashed after him. "No!" she cried. "Let her go, don't hurt her!"

But she was too late. Samara was in his arms, struggling to no avail. The vampire grinned, a manic light in his demonic yellow eyes. "It looks like you couldn't save her," he said.

"No..." Drusilla whispered.

"Mommy! Help me!" Samara cried.

Drusilla couldn't do anything. If she tried to come any closer, she knew this vampire would just kill her. But right now, he wasn't doing anything. Drusilla wondered again what it was he wanted with them.

The vampire shifted back into his human face, although it did not make him appear any kinder. His grey eyes seemed just as cruel as the yellow. "Now," he said. "I want you to pass on a message to Spike for me."

And he let go of Samara, throwing her under the water. She screamed with fear, but then she was being held under and couldn't scream any more. Drusilla heard her gurgle helplessly as she tried to push the vampires hands off her. There was nothing she could do. Drusilla leapt forwards. But before she even reached them, something started to happen.

She wasn't sure what it was at first. The vampire seemed to become afraid, distracted, as if he could see something Drusilla could not. She knew what that was like. He started breathing heavily, although he of course did not need to breathe.

"What are you doing?" he shouted. "What... what are you showing me..." He let go of Samara. She scrambled to her feet and stood there, glaring down at him with great rage.

Drusilla walked over to her and put a hand on her shoulder. "Come on Samara," she said. "Let's go."

"Not yet," Samara said. "Who are you?" she asked the vampire.

He didn't respond at first. But then something changed again and he gasped.

"Who are you?" Samara asked again.

"Damien," he said.

"Why are you here?"

"I told you already. It was... for Spike. I wanted to send him a message. I thought, it wouldn't be hard to hurt you. And then Spike'd be real pissed."

"You were wrong, Damien. I'm not as helpless as you thought," Samara said. She stayed there for a moment, and then turned back. "I won't even kill you. I can't be bothered."

She turned and walked away, taking Drusilla's hand and allowing her to lead her.

* * *

Spike walked back to the Hyperion feeling a little better than he had been. A good fight could do that. He'd had an eventful enough night. Staked a few vamps, saved a few people. Had to give a lecture to a really stupid would-be vampire hunter who'd nearly got themself bitten. Kid thought it would be a grand idea to just walk straight into a vamp nest with nothing but a stake.

He saw Drusilla as he walked inside, curled up like a cat on a sofa, Miss Edith on her lap. Samara wasn't there. She must have gone back to her room. Why was Drusilla just here alone? It was like she was waiting for him

"You two have a good night?" Spike asked, walked over to her and sitting down beside her.

"We went to the park," Dru said.

"Anything interesting happen there?"

"We met your grey-eyed son," Drusilla said. She pouted. "He wasn't very nice."

Spike frowned. "My what? Wait, d'you mean Damien?"

Dru nodded. "Yeah." Her voice and gestures were languid, as if she were half asleep.

"What happened?"

"It was all right. Samara helped. She hurt him."

Spike remembered when Samara had helped him when he'd been trapped in Damien's basement. He hadn't known why. He still didn't. He didn't understand her at all, and it worried him. The girl was dangerous, he knew. But what he didn't know was what to do about it .

"You both all right now, pet?" he asked.

"Yes. Damien seemed annoyed though. I don't think he likes Samara very much," Drusilla said.

"Well, she is a bit... I mean the things she can show you. It's not exactly pleasant, not something you can forget. And she did have that whole cursed videotape thing."

"That's gone now."

"You're sure? For how long exactly?"

"I know you don't trust her, Spike. But she doesn't want to hurt anyone. Not anymore."

""It's not about me trusting her. It's about her being too dangerous. She _can't_ be trusted."

"But she has to be. If you can never accept her she'll just give up. You've got to let her try before thinking she will fail."

"Dru... the girl's a killer."

"And what were you for all those years? What were we, as we travelled together?"

"And you're going to say you're so much better now? Have you really stopped killing people just because you're with me and Angel now? No, you haven't. You still smell like human blood. You've been killing. Angel was right. We can't trust either of you. But I can't do anything about that. I mean, I couldn't k—"

"But Spike... I have stopped. I haven't killed anyone since I've been here, I swear. I've been feeding off humans, yeah, but I haven't actually killed any of them. Just... left them a little light-headed. They didn't feel a thing. I can stop them from even remembering. You know what I can do, don't you?"

He did. He knew a lot about Drusilla's powers, having seen them in action many times. But that didn't change much. "I get it that you're not killing them. That's good. But they aren't letting you do this, are they?"

"No." Drusilla shook her head. "But why does it matter? I'm not hurting them. Not really. And it's not like they'd be willing to let me feed from them if given the choice. Why does it matter if they let me or not if they're not hurt?"

"You really don't get it do you?"

"No. That's the thing. I can't understand it the way you and Angel can. That's what your soul gives you. You know, by mere instinct, whether something is right or wrong. I can't know that. I can't understand it properly." Drusilla's voice was shaking. Her eyes glistened.

Spike knew what that was like. He remembered how he'd tried to be good, back when he'd had the chip. He'd been terrible at it. Buffy hadn't understood him at the time. But he could understand Dru now. Well, he understood what she meant by not knowing right and wrong properly. What he didn't understand was why this was suddenly concerning her when it never had before.

"Dru... what's this about?" Spike asked.

"What do you mean?"

"This. You talking about... Saying you haven't been killing, about how you can't tell right from wrong. Why are you saying this? What's making you think of these things?"

Drusilla stood up suddenly. "I should go. See Samara. She doesn't like it when I leave her alone." She walked up stairs, graceful as always, but something too fast in her movements. She wasn't just going to see Samara. She was trying to get away from Spike.


	16. Chapter Sixteen

**_The Ghost's Curse_**

 _Chapter Sixteen_

* * *

Annie woke up in a place she didn't recognise. Just her luck, right? It took her a moment to remember what had happened to her the previous night. She'd been trying to get home, or the squat that passed for her home anyway. But on the way there...

It took her a moment for her brain to catch up. For her to realise what had happened to her, what she was... she almost wanted to be sick. She was a vampire. A monster. How could she have let this happen? How could she have been so stupid? She should never have tried to get back alone. She didn't really have friends, but maybe she could have convinced one of the witches from the coven to go with her.

But it was too late now. It was no use dwelling on what she could have done differently in another life. She just had to make the most of her own reality. She got to her feet, had a look around the room.

She was in a basement, in an old house. Probably some abandoned place Damien had moved into for shelter. Kind of like the place she'd been living in. There were rusted chains on the floor and a boarded up window near the ceiling. The place looked far from inviting. But she guessed it would be her home, for now.

The only door was at the top of a flight of steps. It wasn't locked. Annie began to walk up the stairs, the old wood groaning beneath her feet. She pushed the door open. The hallway beyond was just as derelict as the basement. She could see the front door of the building ahead of her. She walked forwards, knowing it would be locked, but determined to try getting out anyway.

Before she reached it, she felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked back and saw Damien behind her. Her sire. That was going to take some getting used to .

"Where do you think you're going?" he asked. "Home? Do you even have a home?"

Annie shrugged. "A bit of one."

"This is your home now. Got it?"

"No," Annie whispered. "This will never be my home."

Damien growled and lunged at her. Annie tried to get away. She was faster than she'd ever been, but he still grabbed onto her. His short, sharp fingernails bit into her skin. She tried to struggle out of his grip, feeling a hint of satisfaction when she saw that he was having trouble holding her. She was so much stronger now.

But he was still holding her. And Annie felt a lot less satisfaction when her head was smashed into the wall. She felt excruciating pain as her skull cracked and dimly heard plaster falling from the wall, as if from a distance.

She was still awake. How the hell was she still conscious after something like that? She knew vampires were resilient, but...

"Say that again, I dare you. It won't end well for you."

Damien let her go, and she stumbled, fell, unable to regain her balance in time. She shuffled back, putting the wall behind her. Damien must have seen the panic in her eyes, because he turned away and walked back into the room he had come from. Annie heard the door lock.

She leant back and closed her eyes. She just wanted to get out of here. She wiped tears from her eyes, swearing under her breath. What was she even crying for? It wasn't like it would help. It wasn't like it would make her human again.

* * *

Spike sat by Angel, both trying to do some research for a case. Well, Angel was trying to do research for a case. Spike was watching Samara and Dru, who were sitting at a table having a tea party with Miss Edith and a ragged teddy bear Spike did not know the origin of. He still didn't really know what was going on. Why was Drusilla trying to help her? And what was up with everything she'd been saying last night. It was getting really quite strange. Not that Dru wasn't always strange, but... this was all definitely new.

And there was that name. Rachel. He'd heard it in his head after he'd seen the tape. A lot of weird shit had been going on in his mind at that point, but he remembered this. Rachel. Who was she? He tried to find out from Rider, but she didn't know a thing. So who would? He didn't know anything about her other than the name Rachel, and that was a pretty common name. There was no way he could find her based on that alone. But he needed to find out more about Samara. Even with as much as he had found out, he knew nothing.

"Spike!"

He turned to look at Angel. "What?"

"Why are you just staring into space like that? You're supposed to be helping."

"Right. Yeah, it's just. Samara. We hardly know anything about her."

"I know what you mean. I can't quite say why, but that kid kind of creeps me out."

"She is a strange one."

Spike turned back to his laptop. He tried reading the words on the screen, but that just wouldn't go into his preoccupied mind. He opened a new tab, but then paused. What the hell could he even look up? He couldn't just type in 'Rachel' and expect to get results. It would come up with a load of peoples MySpace profiles or something. He tried typing in the phrase 'rachel samara'. The only results that came up he knew had nothing to do with her. The top result was someone called Rachel Samara Blake. He tried 'rachel cursed tape'. Nothing. He typed in 'rachel killer video'. The top result was an article in some Seattle newspaper written by someone called Rachel Keller. Spike clicked on it, thinking it seemed a little bit interesting.

He'd seen this before, when he'd been researching the tape. But that was before he'd heard Samara speaking in his mind, whispering the name Rachel. He hadn't paid attention to the reporters name at the time, or even to the article itself. It had only said the same as all the others. But this one was written much earlier—the date said 2002. Not much time after the first rumours about this had started. At the top of the article was a picture of reporter, as well as an e-mail address. Even though he knew he'd never seen her before, Spike recognised the woman in the picture. So this was that Rachel who Samara had known. Who was she?

* * *

Samara sipped tea from her cup. Drusilla had blood. Miss Edith and Samara's new teddy bear both had cups of tea, but they weren't drinking any, because they were toys. For some reason, Drusilla couldn't seem to get her head around the idea that toys couldn't eat or drink. She seemed to think they were alive. Samara didn't want to tell her they weren't.

She could see Spike and Angel doing something on computers. She didn't know what they were doing. Spike kept looking over at Samara; she didn't like that. It was like he was suspicious. Samara hoped he wouldn't try to get rid of her. If he did, she'd have to kill him. She'd been trying very hard not to kill anyone, but if he got in her way, she wouldn't stop herself. He'd have to go. But she hoped it wouldn't come to that. She wanted to try and be good this time. She wanted to live how people really did, and not just copy them. She knew it was going to be difficult for her, but she wanted to try.

* * *

 **Author note:** **Well, that was a fast update, wasn't it? I feel proud of myself. I'm going to try to update more often now. Strangely, I seem to write more during school time. But I want to finish this quickly, because I've got an idea for a crossover AU with BtVS and RWBY, where the scooby gang are students at Beacon. I'm not going to write that for a while yet, since I still have this, plus it will be the first RWBY story I've written. So, I want to finish this and write a couple of shorter stories first.**

 **Oh, and I've already started the next chapter of this story! And planned a bit more, so hopefully I can update at least once a week from now.**


	17. Chapter Seventeen

**_The Ghost's Curse_**

 _Chapter Seventeen_

* * *

"Spike, I don't want to stay here any more," Drusilla said.

The sun had just set, and the three of them—Spike, Drusilla and Samara—were outside, in the same park Drusilla had taken Samara to the other night when Damien had found them. Spike hadn't really wanted to go, but he'd had nothing else that much worth doing. They'd brought a few weapons with them this time, in case Damien showed up again. Though Spike didn't think he was going to risk that any time soon, with what Samara had done to him last time. He knew that none of them were easy to kill. Still, it was always good to come prepared.

"What do you mean, love? Here as in the park, or here as in L.A or..."

"Yeah," Dru said. "I mean this town. I don't like being here with Angel. He reminds me too much. Of what he did. What he made me. I have to get away from it."

"You can't get away from your past," Spike said. It was strange, her saying this now. She'd never been all that bothered before. Although sometimes she was. He remembered back in Sunnydale, what seemed like a long time ago now. When he had captured Angel for that ritual to restore Drusilla's strength. She'd tortured him, poured holy water on his skin. She'd told him all about her family. And yet, when Angelus had returned to them, she'd been so excited to see him. Why was it she only seemed to blame Angel?

"No. But I can get away from Angel."

"That you can."

They went quiet. There was no sound. Of course neither of them breathed. Samara wasn't particularly loud herself, from where she was a small distance away, trying to make a daisy chain. The silence consumed them like a fire.

"Where would you go?" Spike asked, looking up at Drusilla.

"I don't know yet. We'll find somewhere. Just... somewhere far. Sunnydale might have been nice, but you ruined it all."

"Couldn't help it, Dru. We were trying to get rid of the horde of Turok-Han, not destroy what was left of the town."

"We could leave. Go somewhere else, as I said. Maybe further north. Somewhere cooler."

"Yeah. Maybe. So how are you and Samara doing, anyway? Remembering to feed her?"

"Actually, I am. She's easier to feed than a bird, because she can talk. She tells me when she needs food."

"And you don't leave her in a cage, either."

"That's true," Drusilla said. As if it wouldn't be. Drusilla might not be what most people called rational, but Spike couldn't quite picture her trying to keep Samara in a cage like one of those songbirds she'd kept. "We'd have to leave soon. School starts in five weeks," Drusilla continued.

"School? Who's going to school?"

"Samara, of course. Why would either of us need to go to school?"

Of course he couldn't answer that. It would be strange for two vampires over a hundred years old to go to any kind of school, to say the least. But Spike didn't really like the idea of Samara going to a school. What would she be like there, with all those other people to hurt? Never mind. It might do her good, being around people. But then, she might end up killing everyone. There was no way for them to know which it would be until it had already happened, and by then it would be too late.

"You really think that'll be a good idea?" Spike asked.

"Why wouldn't it be? She's a child. Children go to school."

"Right."

"Samara, what do you think? Don't you want to go to school?" Drusilla asked, a little louder so that Samara could hear them more clearly.

Samara paused in what she was doing, and shrugged. "Maybe. I'm... not sure. I never went to school before."

Spike frowned, wondering why she had never gone to school. Whatever. Didn't matter anyway. Just seemed odd. He put it out of his mind.

"It would definitely be good to get out of here," he mused. "But we've got to actually find a place first. Can't just leave, and not know where we're going. Bad things could happen that way."

"Bad things could always happen," Drusilla said.

"Yeah. But we're a more likely to be able to deal with them if we actually have a vague idea about what we're doing."

"That's probably true."

The silence came upon them again. It was so difficult for them to speak to each other now. Spike didn't know why he'd bothered to come here. He'd wanted to be with Dru, but what for? They were barely communicating. And Samara seemed scared of him, somehow. He knew she didn't trust him. But then, he didn't trust her either. With what she was capable of, he knew that could be deadly.

* * *

Damien looked at the two kids sitting across from him. Emma and Mikey, they were called. He thought they were a couple, or maybe brother and sister. He hadn't bothered to ask them. They looked like they weren't even old enough to be in this bar. Not really Damien's idea of perfect minions, but they'd do. He could use any help he could get. He was going to take down Spike and that little freak if it was the last thing he did, and that was the truth.

"So what do you want to see us for?" Emma asked him.

"I thought you might be able to help me with something," Damien said. "You see, I have an... enemy. I want to get rid of him."

"Get rid of? You mean kill?" Mikey asked.

Damien smiled. "What else would I mean?"

"We're not— We're not murderers. We aren't going to help you kill someone."

"Are you sure about that? I could make it quite worth your while."

"You mean money? No, still not doing it. Even if you promised us a million dollars, we wouldn't do that."

"Oh, I'm not talking about money. What if I could offer you eternal life."

Mikey actually laughed then. "Well, that would be great, but you know, also kind of impossible."

"I ask again." Damien shifted into game face, showing his fangs. "Are you sure about that?"

Mikey widened his eyes, getting to his feet hurriedly enough that he almost fell from the chair. Emma stayed exactly where she was, her expression neutral, but the grip she had on her drink was almost tight enough to break the glass, her knuckles white. Damien had a look around. No one was paying much attention to the three of them. Vampires were common enough here that people were used to them. The others knew that if they tried to interfere, they'd only get hurt themselves.

"What are you, some kind of demon?" Mikey asked. He wasn't leaving, even though he was terrified. Maybe these two would be more use than Damien had first thought.

"A vampire. And if you agree to help me, the two of you could be the same."

"We'll never help you," Emma said.

Mikey didn't respond at all. Damien could tell he was considering the offer, wondering about it. "So that's it?" he replied at last. "We do what you ask us to, and you'll let us live forever?"

"Exactly."

"Mikey, think about this. I mean, he's asking us to kill someone. We don't even know why. And we don't know that he'd actually turn us instead of just killing us either."

"Yeah, but Emma. We could be _vampires._ Imagine that. We'd be powerful, we could live forever. We could be everything we've ever wanted to be."

Mikey sounded almost excited now, but Emma hardly seemed to care.

"Just think about it," Damien said. "How much better everything could be. You could never let yourself get stepped on again. You wouldn't have to rely on anyone."

Damien could tell that Mikey was starting to seriously consider this. Through the fear, he was interested.

"Alright," Mikey said at last. "Emma? What do you think?"

She shook her head. "No. I don't trust him," she said. "He'd probably just try to kill us anyway."

For a moment, Damien thought Mikey was going to have a flash of intelligence and decide to walk away, like Emma. But he didn't.

"I'm in," he said. "I'll do whatever you want if you keep your word."

Damien smiled. Maybe this would be easier than he thought.

* * *

Back at the Hyperion, Spike checked his email on his laptop. He'd sent a message to that Rachel Keller a while ago, saying that he'd read her article on the tape and wanted to know more. He hadn't mentioned Samara yet, thinking that might worry her. She hadn't emailed him back.

Until now.

There was a message in his inbox, from Rachel. He opened it. She didn't say much. Just that she didn't know what else he could want to know, since most of what she knew was in the article, but that she would be happy to answer any questions he might have. It wasn't particularly useful.

He started writing a reply. He mentioned Samara this time, asking if Rachel knew anything about her. He closed his laptop and put it aside. She probably wouldn't read it straight away, if she had taken a few days to reply to his first email. He could wait. But he wanted to know more about Samara. There was something wrong with that girl, he could tell. And Drusilla actually thought it would be a good idea to send her to school, and couldn't even understand why he didn't think it was. He didn't know for sure how much of a bad idea that would be, not really, but he knew it couldn't end well. He remembered that girl, Grace, coming to the Hyperion Hotel in tears after her sister had died. After _Samara_ had killed her sister.

"Spike?"

The voice startled Spike. He looked around. It was Drusilla, standing in the doorway, leaning around the half-open door.

"Drusilla, love. What are you doing here? Don't you want to be with Samara?"

Drusilla shrugged. "Samara wants me around too much. She needs to get used to being on her own. I wanted to see you," she said. She walked into the room without Spike telling her to, and sat beside him on the couch.

"Dru..."

"What?" Drusilla asked. "Have I done something wrong?"

"Nothing like that. It's just— I don't know. Bit preoccupied, I guess."

"With what?"

Spike couldn't tell her. She'd already complained that he didn't trust Samara enough, he didn't want her to know just how little he really trusted her. "You thought at all about where it is you're planning to go with Samara? You said further north, so what is that? Northern California, Oregon, Washington, Canada..."

"What do you mean 'you're'?" Drusilla asked, frowning. "You're coming with us, aren't you?"

"Well, I guess... But why do you want me to?"

Dru looked up at him, her eyes wide. "Why wouldn't you? You're part of our family. If only Darla could come, but she hasn't been anywhere for a while..."

"You really want me around? After everything that happened? After I threatened to kill you for the Slayer?"

"Even after that," Drusilla said. "Spike... I could never stop wanting you." Her expression seemed so sincere, but Spike wasn't sure whether to believe her. She had cheated on him twice, and after that last time he'd seen her, back in Sunnydale... He couldn't understand why anyone would still want to see him after that.

"Is that really true though?" he whispered.

Drusilla leaned over, and kissed him on the lips. "Really," she said. "I should go check on Samara. She doesn't like being left alone very much. It's like she's scared I'll disappear if I'm gone too long."

Drusilla got up and left the room, leaving Spike alone to think about her words.


	18. Chapter Eighteen

**_The Ghost's Curse_**

 _Chapter Eighteen_

* * *

"Do you have to go?" Drusilla asked. "We'll all be so lonely without you."

Spike stopped walking and sighed. "Yes, Dru. I really do. Sorry. I have to go see her."

"But you'll be back soon, won't you? You won't leave us alone forever? You won't let the sunshine take you away from me again?" Drusilla didn't want him to disappear again. Didn't want him to go crawling back to _her,_ like he had done before. She wanted him to stay with her and Samara, for them to be a family again.

"Of course I'll be back, Dru. I wouldn't leave you, you know that."

Drusilla thought about that. Why did he expect her to know that he would come back? He hadn't always. He had gone away and left her."Samara doesn't want you to come back. She says she wants you gone."

"Why would she say that?" Spike asked.

"I don't know. She's silly sometimes. She says you don't like her. That's sad. I want you two to get along..."

"Yeah, well, pet... It's just— She's quite strange, you know? I never know what she's thinking. And she just seems kind of... off, somehow. I don't know. Maybe it's her powers, maybe just all that shit she's been through."

"I don't know what you mean," Drusilla said, frowning at him. "Off? Off what exactly?"

"Just, er... Look, never mind. Don't worry about it. I'm sure it's just us not trusting each other 'cause we don't know each other alll that well. Plus she was torturing me for all that time after I'd seen the tape. I don't know why she seemed so interested in me then when she's ignoring me now, but whatever. Least it's stopped. I don't know how she can do that, and I don't know how much control she has over her powers. She's strong, Dru. She was able to kill people, so many people, just by using those powers. Psychic powers are usually weak, but what she can do... it's terrifying."

"You shouldn't be so scared of her. She doesn't want to hurt anyone, she's nice. She's a sweet, good little girl, like Miss Edith."

"She killed hundreds of people, Dru."

"So?" Drusilla didn't understand why he was bringing that up at all. It just didn't seem relevant to the conversation.

"You really don't get it?" Spike looked surprised, but Drusilla couldn't work out why. "Never mind. Bye."

Spike turned and walked away, grabbing Angel's car keys as he left. Drusilla was sure Angel would be annoyed when he saw that the car was gone again, but she didn't care, and she didn't think Spike did either. He wouldn't tell her who he was planning to go and see, just that she was up in Oregon. That was a long way away. Drusilla knew what it was about though, even if he wouldn't tell her. Samara had mentioned Rachel to her once. She had quickly changed the subject, as if she'd said it by accident and didn't want any questions. Samara had told Drusilla a lot of things about her, but this was something she kept secret. Oh well. Dru was sure that Samara would feel better after a while. She was still adjusting after all.

Drusilla stayed by the door for a moment, watching Spike start driving. She sighed. It would be at least a day until he was back. She would have tried to go with him, but she would have to take Samara, and she knew Samara couldn't go. If she knew he was going to see Rachel... Drusilla was afraid that Samara might try to hurt him. She turned away and walked back upstairs to Samara.

She was sitting on her bed, clutching her teddy, which she still hadn't named. Drusilla thought it sad that it didn't have a name yet. Did Samara not care about it, or was she just lazy? Samara looked at Drusilla as she walked in, a scowl on her face.

"Mommy... You were gone again. Why do you keep leaving?"

"I can't stay with you _all_ the time," Drusilla said, walking over to her and putting her arm around her.

"You could. You should never leave me. I want you to stop leaving me," Samara said, wrapping her arms so tightly around Drusilla's body that Dru was suddenly very glad she didn't need to breathe.

"I always come back though, don't I, Samara? I never leave you forever. I'll always come back."

"Will you though?" Samara asked. "I don't think I believe you. Everyone else left me."

"I won't leave you. I told you that already. I mean it, I promise. Why would I ever want to leave you? You're my little girl."

Samara shrugged. She didn't say anything more, almost like she couldn't put it into words. She seemed to have trouble expressing herself sometimes. Or a lot of the time. Drusilla felt like that a lot too. No one seemed to understand what she tried to say to them. It could be very vexing for her, when she was trying to talk to someone and they seemed to be ignoring everything she said. Drusilla thought that the way she spoke was perfectly plain and logical, but nobody else seemed to agree.

* * *

Spike was sick of driving. At least this wasn't as bad as when they'd had to go up to Washington for Samara. He wondered for a moment why he was bothering with all this. He'd never even considered not going to talk to Rachel, even though it was so far. Maybe he just wanted some colder weather for a while, although it _would_ still be summer. Maybe he was just that worried about Samara, and the threat she might pose. It had been sunset when he'd left the Hyperion. Now, there was a foreboding pale light in the sky. Dawn was coming.

When he'd received the latest e-mail from Rachel, he hadn't expected much. He'd half expected her to stop replying after he'd mentioned Samara. But she'd asked to meet him in person, at her house. So he was going, knowing that it was something he couldn't afford to refuse. As much information he had found about Samara, it wasn't worth the thoughts of a person who had known her.

He finally reached the town, a soft orange glow now in the east of the horizon. It looked beautiful enough for him to want to just stop and stare. Maybe he would have done, if that didn't lead to him being set on fire. Spike did _not_ like being set on fire, not matter how pretty the sunrise was. He stepped out of the car and walked up to the door. He knocked.

Rachel cracked the door open, although there was a chain on the door. "Hello?"

"Hello, Rachel. You said I could come over here to talk to you. About Samara."

Rachel closed the door. Spike heard the sound of the chain being taken off, then it opened again. Rachel stood back, holding it open for Spike to walk inside.

He stood still. "Aren't you going to invite me in?"

Rachel frowned. " _Okay_. Come on in," she said.

Spike walked inside. He followed Rachel into the living room.

"I'm just going to make some coffee, then we can talk. Do you want anything?"

"Got any hot chocolate?" Spike asked.

"Uh, yeah, I think so. I'll check." Rachel left the room.

Spike was alone. He sat down on one of the amrchairs and had a look around the room. It wasn't a bad place. There was one sofa, two armchairs and a small pine coffee table. There were pictures on the windowsill, of Rachel and a little boy. Her son, probably. The curtains were closed already, which was good. Spike would find it quite annoying if he'd had to ask Rachel to close them. She'd have questions, and it might not be such a good idea to just tell her he was a vampire.

She came back in a few minutes later with the drinks, setting them both down on the coffee table. "So," she said, taking a sip of her coffee, "what makes you ask about Samara?"

"You're not going to believe this," Spike said. He launched into an explanation. As he mentioned watching the tape after that girl, Rachel looked grave. As he started describing Samara's return to life, she looked almost afraid.

"You... brought her back to life? Why would you do that?" Rachel asked him.

"I... don't really know. It was Drusilla who wanted to. I didn't think it was a good idea, but... look, I didn't even think it could work! All right? I thought... it would fail, and Dru would be upset, and that would be it. I didn't think for a moment that it could actually work. When it did..."

"What happened?" Rachel asked. She picked up her steaming mug of coffee and brought it to her lips slowly, as if testing it, and then took a sip.

"So far? Nothing, really. Samara woke up, and Dru's been taking care of her. But something about her is really weird. I don't know how to say it, but she worries me a little."

"Just a little?" Rachel asked.

Spike shrugged. "Yeah, well. I've seen scarier things than psychic little girls." He picked up his hot chocolate, drank some of it, then looked at it in distaste. It had a skin on and it tasted funny.

"She's not just a 'psychic little girl'. She's killed hundreds of people. And if she wants something, she'll kill everyone in her path."

Spike almost chuckled. That sounded almost like him. "You know a lot about her then?" he asked.

"A bit. I was one of the first people to watch the tape. After my niece Katie died, I investigated her death, wanting to find out what had happened to her. What I found was the tape. And the girl. Who she was. When she was... alive."

"Tell me about her," Spike said, sipping some more of the foul tasting hot chocolate.

"What do you want to know?"

"Whatever you can tell me."

"You sure you're gonna believe me?" Rachel asked him, raising an eyebrow.

"Trust me, I will. Seen some pretty weird stuff myself."

"All right then," Rachel said. She took a deep breath before continuing. "When I first found out about her, I thought the only reason she had made the tape was so that her story would be heard. I didn't think she really wanted to hurt anyone. So I tried to help her. I set her free. That ended up being a mistake. I realised that she didn't just want her story heard—she wanted revenge. Her pain, what had happened to her, it had twisted her, filled her with rage. All she wanted now was death. I figured out that you could stay alive by copying the tape. That knowledge saved Aidan's life. After that, I thought she was done with us. I was wrong again.

"We moved away to Astoria, me and Aidan. For a few months, everything seemed to be going fine. But then that tape showed up again. Another kid had died because of her. And then... she wouldn't leave me alone. Aidan got sick, and then... he wasn't Aidan anymore. She was controlling him. Possessing him. It was awful. She wanted a mother. Thought I'd like her because I'd been kind to her before, when I set her free from the well. I understand why she was hurt and angry. But she nearly took my son away from me, and I can't forgive her for that."

"And how much do you know about what she was like before? About what happened to her?"

"Not much. I know that she was born to a woman named Evelyn, who tried to drown her when she was a baby. After that, she was adopted by Anna and Richard Morgan. She grew up with them in a ranch in Washington, on Moesko Island. Eventually, Samara's powers, whatever they were, started to take a toll on Anna. Samara was made to live in the barn with the horses, who later threw themselves off a cliff because of what she was showing them with her powers. She couldn't control her powers at all when she was alive. I don't know if that's any different know or not. At one point, a few months before their deaths, Anna and Samara were both sent to Eola County Psychiatric Hospital. When they were let out, they went to Shelter Mountain Inn for the winter. Once they were there, Anna suffocated Samara and pushed her into that well, before throwing herself off a cliff. Samara had driven her insane. Anna never really wanted to hurt Samara, not really. She still loved her. Samara was all she'd ever wanted, but she killed her."

Spike was stunned. "Samara's own mother was the one who killed her?"

Rachel nodded. "She didn't really mean to. I mean... she wasn't in her right mind at all. Samara gives people these visions. Anna felt like she was going crazy, and she knew Samara was something to do with it."

"What about her father? Richard Morgan?"

"He's dead as well."

"This girl just leads to death wherever she goes, doesn't she?"

"It would seem that way?"

The two of them looked up as a boy entered the room. He was maybe twelve years old. "Rachel?" he asked. "Who is this? Who are you talking to?"

"Aidan, you don't need to be here. He's just here for us to talk about, uh, work stuff. You know, for the paper."

"He's here to talk about the girl, isn't he?"

Rachel sighed. "Yes. He's here to talk about the girl."

"What did you do?" Aidan asked Spike, his tone accusing.

"What do you mean, what did I do? It wasn't me."

"But you didn't stop her. You let her out. Why did you let her out?" Aidan demanded.

"Dru thought she could help her. I never thought this would work at all. Bringing back the dead isn't usually possible. But I guess the rules are a little different for ghosts..."

"I think the rules are different for ghosts in general. Normally when people die, they're dead. But this girl stuck around. And now you've brought her back," Rachel said.

"It wasn't my idea. I didn't even know that it would work, all right? I thought it wouldn't, I said that. And now we're stuck with her, but so far, she's done nothing wrong. Proabably it's only a matter of time, but I reckon we can deal with it. We've faced worse than her."

"Trust me, you haven't," Aidan said. He was still standing in the doorway, glaring at Spike from where he was leaning, as if reluctant to enter the room properly.

"You sure about that, kid? You don't know anything about what we've gone through."

"I know her. And I know what she's like." Aidan turned and walked out.

"Not a particularly friendly kid, is he?" Spike asked.

Rachel gave him a strange look, almost as if she were smiling and glaring at him at the same time. "He's been through a lot at her hands. It's not something he can just put behind him and forget."

"No, I don't suppose it is," Spike said. They sat in silence for a moment. "Do you think... d'you think she could ever get better?"

"Better?" Rachel asked, frowning.

"Better. At being like other people. At living, and not killing people all the time."

"I don't know," Rachel said. "But the way she thinks... I don't think she's the same as most people are. Not that everyone's the same, of course, but Samara... She's very different. I think... she gets very attached to people she likes. And she doesn't want them to leave. She feels things very strongly. Love, anger, hate..."

Spike nodded. "She's like that with Dru. Wants to be around her all the time. It's actually a tad disturbing."

"And she doesn't like you, does she?"

"Not a bit."

"Samara didn't have a good relationship with her father. Her adoptive father, Richard Morgan. They didn't get along. At all."

"You think she's seeing me as similar?"

"I think so."

Spike thought about that for a moment. "I think I'd better leave now," he said. "Got to get home."

He walked out of the room. Before he left the house, Rachel called out to him.

"What?" he asked.

"Here," Rachel said, handing him a scrap of paper. "That's got my phone number, so it'll be easier for you to contact me if you need to."

"Thanks," Spike said, then walked out.

* * *

Annie didn't like the new people. They were loud, obnoxious and annoying. Well, the boy was. The girl kept a little quieter, although it was quite off putting how she kept crying for help. Who was she even talking to? It seemed completely pointless. It could't be Damien; he didn't give a shit about them. That girl seemed almost more miserable than Annie felt. She kept crying and screaming. Annie was sick of it already. They were never getting out of here, so what was the point in her screaming like that.

After a while of that, the door opened. Damien strode in, a knife in his hand. He seemed to like knives a lot. The other two probably thought he was just being threatening, but Annie knew that he would actually use it.

"What is all this screaming for? I'm trying to sleep."

"I wanna go home," the girl said, between sobs and gasps.

"Trust me, once we're done, you can go wherever you want. But for know, you're staying here."

"I didn't want this to happen..." the girl said.

"Well neither did I!" Damien shouted. "You think this was what I planned, huh? You think I intended to become a monster who couldn't even go out during the day? Think when I was a kid I just decided hey, you know what I wanna be when I grow up, a vampire? I didn't get any more choice in this than you did."

Like that made their ordeal any better. Annie sighed, pulling her blanket over her head. She couldn't sleep with this noise. Damien's yelling might make him feel better, but it didn't help Annie at all.

"When are we gonna get more food?" the boy demanded.

"I already gave you food yesterday. You don't need that much. Besides, that one didn't want any anyway." He was referring to the new girl. When Damien had brought them the body of a girl, she ad refused to drink. Annie couldn't understand why.

"But we're hungry!" the boy protested.

"So? I don't care." Damien turned to leave.

The boy had apparently had apparently had enough at that point. He raced up the stairs, leaping halfway. He grabbed Damien. A moment later, the kid was screaming, hanging over the ledge of the top of the stairs. Damien still held his knife, and now it was dripping blood. Damien raised the knife again, and the boy visibly recoiled, closing his eyes as if to steel himself for the blow. Damien brought the knife down softly, stroking his face with the flat of the blade and leaving tiny ribbons of dark blood trailing down his face.

"You don't tell me what to do," Damien said, his voice suddenly quiet, almost a whisper. "Got it? That's my job. You do what _I_ say, okay?"

The boy made no reaction, no indication that he had heard Damien's words.

Damien turned the knife around so that the edge cut deeply into his skin. He gasped in pain. "Okay?" Damien sad again, raising his voice a bit more.

"Yeah. Yeah, okay."

Damien threw him off the staircase. He yelped, then landed roughly on the ground. Annie swore she could hear a dull cracking sound as he landed.

"Mikey!" the girl cried, running over to him. It was the first time Annie had heard her speak coherently. "Mikey, are you okay?"

The boy—Mikey—stirred, groaning. Annie could see the stab wound in his gut now. It wasn't bleeding like a humans wound, so much as seeping blood.

"He'll be fine. We heal quick. Just remember. That's what will happen to you if you don't do what I say."

* * *

 **Author note: Hello. Sorry the chapter was late. I had coursework to do. I still have loads to do, but I took a break to finish off this chapter. Hope you liked it. I will try to get the next one up a little faster, but it could be tricky.**


	19. Chapter Nineteen

**_The Ghost's Curse_**

 _Chapter Nineteen_

* * *

The house was nice enough, he supposed. Old, like him and Dru. Pretty big too. Probably would need some fixing up. Ivy all over the right side. They were out in the middle of nowhere really, but the nearest town was only half hour away. Samara was going to start school there in a couple of weeks. Spike still wasn't sure about that being a good idea, but he didn't want to argue with Dru, even if she was acting a lot more lucid recently. Arguing with Dru had never worked particularly well before.

He walked into the house. The floorboards creaked and groaned, his boots kicking up dust. It had been a long time since anyone had lived here. Drusilla walked inside to stand beside him.

"What do you think of it, Spike?"

He shrugged. "It's all right, I suppose. Pretty much anything would be better than being stuck at the Hyperion with Angel."

Drusilla didn't say anything, but looked at him and Spike could tell she was silently agreeing. He might find Angel annoying enough to be around, but Drusilla resented him for more than that. He had ruined her life. As Angelus, she had always loved him, because he was family and she hadn't really had a choice. Feeling for him had helped her cope with what he did to her. But as Angel, she hated him. Angel knew what he had done wrong, and he wasn't a threat, so she was free to hate him.

He looked back, to see Samara still standing in the doorway. "Is the kid gonna come in or just stand there?"

"Her name is Samara. And why don't you just ask her yourself?" Dru said, walking up the stairs.

Spike watched after her, and looked back at Samara. What had she left them alone for? He sighed. "What are you standing there for, bit?"

Samara looked at him. She wasn't quite glaring, but she didn't look friendly. Her eyes bored into him. "Am I not allowed to?"

"Well, you are, I guess. But it doesn't seem too fun. You could come inside the house, take a look around. Might see something you like. What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing," Samara said. But she didn't take another step.

Spike raised an eyebrow.

"It just... it looks like the other one."

"Other what?" She just looked at him. "Other house? What other— Oh! You mean the house you lived in before—"

Samara's eyed narrowed. Maybe it wasn't a good idea for him to finish that sentence. Samara probably didn't want to be reminded of her own death.

"Well, it's not the same. This is a new house."

"It doesn't look new," Samara said. "It looks old."

"Not what I meant. Just... you haven't been here before, yeah? You don't have memories of this place, just one that looks a little bit like it. This place is all new. There's no reason to be afraid of it."

Samara stood there for a second or two longer, then sighed and slowly walked inside, looking around.

"See? House isn't too scary, is it?" Spike said.

"Nope. Just a house," Samara said. She played with a piece of wallpaper hanging off the wall, right beside a mirror, covered in a coating of dust, just like everything else. Though both of them stood before it, only Samara was reflected back. She looked back behind her at Spike. "You don't have a reflection."

"You knew that."

Samara shrugged. "I hadn't really seen it properly before though," she said. "There aren't many mirrors back at the hotel."

This was the most Samara had ever said to him, Spike realised. She was usually distrustful of him. She still was, but she was at least getting a little chattier. That had to be good, didn't it? He didn't want her to be afraid of him. Wasn't much of a fan of people being afraid these days, unless they were his enemies.

He walked upstairs, following Drusilla. Samara stayed down in the hall, seemingly engrossed in the old wallpaper. She did that sometimes. Just became occupied with an extremely simple thing for a long amount of time. He'd seen her once sitting in the lobby, staring at a mosquito as it flew through the room. That had kept her occupied for a good hour. Even if she got bored, she probably wouldn't come upstairs for a while.

Spike climbed the old staircase. The boards creaked and groaned wherever he walked, but they seemed strong enough. There were four bedrooms, two bathrooms and a study on this floor. There was one other door, that one leading to the attic. Spike walked into one of the bedrooms. It was a large room, with a king size bed and an old wardrobe, one wall completely covered by an empty bookshelf. There was a window-seat, where Drusilla was kneeling, looking out of the window. The window was open to the starry sky, and the gauzy lace curtains fluttered in the breeze. Drusilla was leaning out of the open window, looking at the stars, her hair fluttering back from her face.

"They saying anything to you now, love?" Spike asked, as he walked closer to her. He sat down beside her, facing her instead of the window. She looked past him, barely seeming to notice him.

"Not really," she said, shaking her head. "They've been quieter recently. I don't know why. It makes my wonder if they've forgotten me. Or if I've forgotten them."

"How can you think about them if you forgot them?" Spike asked, a smile on his face.

"I think I said that wrong." She frowned. "I don't quite know how to say what I meant. How do you and Samara like the house? Did I choose well?"

"Yeah, I think so. Samara wasn't sure about it at first. It reminded her of her old house. I still don't think she likes it, but at least she's come inside now."

"Oh. It isn't so much like it, is it? I didn't think they were that alike." She was speaking quietly, sounding distant, still looking up at the sky.

"Well, she did. But I think she's all right now."

"I hope she is. I want her to be happy. I don't want her to be sad. She was hurt for so long. The things she went through, they twisted her mind, made it all rotten, fulls of worms where there should have been sunlight and dreams. What do you think, Spike? Do you think the poor lost girl can ever get better?"

Spike let a moment go by before replying. He wasn't sure whether she was talking about Samara or herself. "I think she probably can. It might take a while, and it'll be hard, but if she really tries, I'm sure she can get better."

"Do you really think so?" she asked. "You have to promise me."

"I promise, pet."

"Thank you, Spike," she said, turning to face him at last. If he had been human, his heart would have sped up when she turned her gaze upon him. Being a vampire, of course, that did not happen. He felt its absence then. A beating heart, warm skin... it was something they could never have. But it was something they didn't need.

"So what do you think then? Good to get away?"

"Definitely. I don't like the city. All the noises, the smells. It's hard to think. It's better here. I think Samara likes it better here too."

"But she wouldn't even go inside the house for a whole minute."

"I don't just mean the house. There aren't as many people here. She doesn't trust most people very much."

"She doesn't trust me either," Spike said.

"She will," Drusilla said. "We're a family, and I'll not have the two of you disliking each other."

Spike smiled slightly. It wasn't like Drusilla could actually control whether the two of them disliked each other or not. But it was nice that she said that anyway. They were a family. Just as they had used to be. Except now they had Samara too, which made everything so much more complicated. Not to mention how different Spike and Drusilla were now as well. Things weren't the same as they used to be, and they never could be. But that didn't mean they couldn't be just as good.

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Oh? So what will you do about it if we don't like each other much?"

"Well," Drusilla said, her gaze becoming mischievous. "Then I'd have to punish you, wouldn't I?"

"Would you? And what, exactly, would this punishment entail?" Spike asked, his voice low.

Drusilla smiled, and moved over so that she was straddling him. All her focus was on Spike now, the stars temporarily forgotten. "I have some ideas," she whispered, leaning in close to whisper in his ear.

There was a knock on the door. Spike was startled for a few seconds, being lost in the moment.

Samara stood in the doorway. "I'm hungry," she said. "Can we go get food?"

"Of course we can, Samara," Drusilla said, quickly getting up and walking over to Samara. "Aren't you coming, Spike?" she asked.

"Coming to get food?"

"Of course. Samara says she's hungry. We must feed her."

He shrugged. "I think I'll stay here. Unpack and stuff, you know. You two can go without me."

Drusilla looked at him a moment longer, then led Samara out of the room.

* * *

The phone rang with a loud screech, startling Angel from his sleep. Why was the phone next to his bed? He couldn't remember it being there. He sighed when he opened his eyes and realised he'd fallen asleep at his desk. He picked up the phone and answered it.

"Hello?"

"Hey Angel." The voice husky voice was instantly recognisable. Faith.

"Faith, hi. I haven't heard from you in a while. Where have you been?"

There was a moment of silence where Angel could practically hear her shrugging. "Places. Mostly Cleveland. Another Hellmouth there, you know. Been helping out with Robin, and all the little Slayers. Right now I'm on my way over."

"Over where? To L.A.?"

"Yup. Thought I'd come see you. I thought, since what happened with Wolfram and Hart, you might be a little lonely..."

Angel allowed his thoughts to wander for a moment. There was no stopping it. He was still mourning for the losses of Fred, Gunn and Wesley. And now Spike and Drusilla had left as well. He watched them go that evening, right at sunset. There were probably already at the house by now. He was completely alone. Not that he'd really liked having Spike and Dru around... but they'd helped, just a bit.

"I'm fine," he said to Faith.

"Sure you are."

"No, really," he said.

"Uh-huh. I really believe that. So, how about it? Think it be handy having someone around to help you kick demon ass?"

Angel looked around the empty, silent building, as if it could answer him. "I think it might be."

"Cool. Then I guess I'll be there soon. See ya." She hung up, and he was alone again. But at least he had the knowledge that he wouldn't be for much longer.

* * *

Annie was getting increasingly restless. Damien had gone out and left them there again. He said he was going to get food, as well as information. Annie wasn't sure she believed him.

By the time Damien returned, the three of them were clustered by the door, waiting for him. It had been so long since they had fed. Damien didn't seem particularly concerned about his so-called minions going hungry. But this time he had two people with him. They were already dead, so not the best meal, but Annie would take what she could get by now.

He threw one of the bodies down for them and Annie leapt for it, latching onto it with her teeth and sucking the cold, dead blood. It was disgusting. But it sated her hunger, if only a little.

"That's it," Damien said. "Drink up. Tomorrow, we are going to attack. And we will kill Spike."

"And then we can go?" Emma asked him.

He smiled cruelly. "Sure you can," he said.

Annie narrowed he eyes. Maybe he wouldn't let them go, but she was still gonna get out of there. Even if she had to walk into the sun to do it. She went back to her meal, grimacing. She really didn't care about some dumb vendetta Damien had, and she didn't particularly want to help him. She did want to survive. And she knew that if they went through with this attack, there was a good chance they wouldn't. But then, maybe Damien wouldn't survive either. That thought brought a smile to her face.

* * *

 **Author's note:** **Sorry about the late chapter. I got a bit stuck for a while. And now I've started planing a new BtVS story called A Dark Vision, which I think will be my first non-crossover for a while. So been though I haven't really started writing that yet, it takes some time away. Plus, as I said, I've just been stuck. Anyway, I hope this chapter was interesting. I'm off to write the next one now.**


	20. Chapter Twenty

_**The Ghost's Curse**_

 _Chapter Twenty_

* * *

It had taken Damien far too long to find out where Spike was staying. He'd finally felt he and his new 'minions' were ready to face him, just to find he didn't even know where to find him. He'd been asking around demon bars and various other haunts. Not many people even knew. They didn't really want to find Spike themselves, given that he killed their kind. Those that did know, didn't want to tell Damien. They knew where he stayed because they didn't hate him as much, including a couple of demons who claimed they used to play poker with him back in Sunnydale. But eventually Damien had threatened someone enough that they had told him. So now the four of them—he, Annie, Mikey and Emma—were heading out. To the Hyperion Hotel.

Damien kept a sharp eye on Annie. He knew she wanted to get away. Emma and Mikey were too scared of him to do anything he didn't want them to, but he wasn't too sure about Annie. She wasn't as scared. She was stronger than the others, and becoming even stronger as she adjusted to her new life. That could have been good. She could have made a good lieutenant for him. But she hated him. That wasn't strange; no one had ever really liked Damien, except for his sister, who had been too young to know better. She didn't know how bad her brother was. She hadn't known the things he'd done. She had always thought everyone else was lying. Little Erin... the only person Damien had ever really cared about. And Spike had killed her.

They rounded the corner, and Damien realised they had arrived at the hotel. It was an old building, built in the twenties. Damien recognised it. It had stood abandoned here in LA for years, but there had been a group of people there for the last few years, one of them living inside. A vampire, like Damien himself. What had his name been? Angel, he thought. He wondered if he knew Spike. If so, maybe he'd kill him as well. They walked down the short pathway to the hotel, and Damien threw open the doors and walked inside, followed by the others. He sniffed the air. Their scents hung in the air. Spike, his girlfriend, and the psychic kid. He didn't even know the other two's names, but he knew the scents well enough. This must be the right place.

The lobby was deserted, but Damien knew there was someone here. He prayed that it was Spike, so he could get his revenge at last. For ending his own life, and his family's. Of course, he hadn't cared much about any of them expect Erin, but it was the principle of it. It was _his_ family, Spike had no right to kill them.

"Spike!" he shouted, hoping to get his attention, if he was elsewhere in the building. "Come down here!"

There was no response. A moment later, he heard footsteps walking down the stairs, and smiled. But it was only a second until that smile faltered. Those weren't Spike's footsteps. He might have only met him a few times, but he remembered how he sounded. He'd haunted his dreams long enough. That definitely wasn't him. Perhaps it was the other person who had lived in this building. Angel. Perhaps he and Spike knew each other after all.

And as this other person came into view, he was even more certain. This person was several inches taller than Spike and had dark hair. And he was older—not necessarily in looks, of course, but Damien could sense his age. He was carrying a crossbow loaded with a wooden bolt. More than enough to kill Damien.

"Who are you?" he demanded, even if he suspected already. Demanding was always good in situation like this. It made him seem in control, or so he hoped. He wasn't sure how in control he could seem with a crossbow pointed at his chest.

"Angel. Who are _you?"_ Angel said. "And what do you want with Spike?"

"I'm Damien. I came to kill him."

"I won't let you do that."

"Why not? Is he a friend of yours? To be honest, I couldn't really picture him having friends. Or you. Maybe you just want to kill him first?"

"I'm not sure I'd call him a friend, exactly. Reluctant ally, maybe. Family, definitely. Not really a friend."

"Where is he?" Damien asked. "Him and his girlfriend. And that psychic bitch. Where did they go?"

"You think I'm going to tell you?"

"Fine! I'll just kill you instead, then!" He tried to walk forwards, about to attack, but felt something land in his side, with an intense pain. A crossbow bolt. He'd forgotten about that.

"Why would I let you do that?"

Damien growled, his face transforming into its demonic form. He leapt forward for Angel, knocking the crossbow from his hands. But before he could attack for real, Angel just moved out of the way, almost too fast for Damien to see.

"Hey!" he called behind him, to the three vampires he had with him. "Don't just stand there, you idiots! Help me!"

Emma and Mikey ran to him, tried to get themselves between him and Angel. It didn't work very well. Angel had clearly had more fighting experience than even Damien had, let alone Emma and Mikey. Annie wasn't even with them. Damien looked back and saw her leaning against a wall, her arms crossed. Just standing there, watching. He had given her strict orders earlier that she was to follow him, or there would be consequences. Clearly she didn't think he was quite so threatening as Emma and Mikey did. She really wasn't afraid of him anymore. He wondered what that meant, really. Would she just refuse to help, and be stubborn, and difficult? Or would she turn against him herself?

He didn't have time to think of that now. He leapt away from another of Angel's attacks. He had not bothered to retrieve the crossbow Damien caused him to drop, but now he had a stake in his hand. Damien kept an eye on that stake, trying to make sure it stayed away from his chest. He didn't much care about pain. If he was staked in the stomach, or the side, he'd get over it pretty quick. If he was staked in the heart, well... he'd be dust. He avoided whatever blows he could, and tried to get to Angel, but he was just moving too _fast._ Damien had trouble even seeing his moves, let alone reacting to them. All of his attention was consumed with trying to stay alive here. Or as alive as was.

A momentary lapse in Damien's attention allowed Angel to try and stake him right in the heart. Emma tried to push him away, but only succeeded in getting in between them. Still, it worked. Smaller as she was, the stake pierced her through the throat rather than the heart. She tore away quickly, blood spurting from the wound as she moved. She got back out of the way quickly enough, and Damien was able to block Angel's next attack. Just barely. He was weaker than the older vampire, so it didn't last long. He had a very short window of opportunity to attack Angel himself. He took it, slamming his fist into Angels jaw. It was a devastating blow that would have broken the bones of a human. It didn't even knock any of Angel's teeth loose. Still, it distracted him for just a second, and Damien had time to pick up the abandoned crossbow.

He snatched up the crossbow and aimed it at Angel. "I have the power now, see? I have the weapon. You can't hurt me."

"Are you sue about that?" Angel asked. He was smirking slightly, as if he knew something Damien didn't. He almost thought that Spike might be back , but Damien would be able to smell him if he were. He put it out of his mind. He was in control here. He had the power.

"Oh, I'm sure," he said. He lifted the crossbow, and aimed it right at Angel, getting ready to shoot.

* * *

Faith was thoroughly sick of buses. And cars. And walking. And... just traveling in general, really. It was a long way from Cleveland to LA, and Faith was tired. To be honest, she wasn't really sure there was much point in her coming here. Angel probably didn't really need her here. She just wanted to get away from the others over in Cleveland. She got along better with Angel. They had the whole shared past of murdering people thing. redemption and all that crap. And was sure she could do some good here. Los Angeles might not be a Hellmouth, but it had always been a bit of a demon magnet, as well the former location of a branch of Wolfram and Hart. The place still drew evil almost as much as Cleveland, and formerly Sunnydale.

She walked down the street, hands in her pockets. Did Angel really want to see her? He'd said it might be a good idea for her to come over on the phone, but what if he was just saying that? No, he probably did mean it. Angel didn't usually 'just say' things. She looked up, searching for a distraction from her daydreams. The hotel was right ahead of her now. She frowned. She thought she could hear something inside. Like fighting, maybe? She hoped Angel was all right. If not, well... she was there to give him a hand.

She ran up the path to the hotel, taking a stake from her jacket. She threw open the door and took a look around. There were four vampires, apart from Angel. One of them was a brown-haired girl, just standing there. Faith didn't bother worrying about her for now. Or the two—a blonde-haired girl and a boy— who were cowering away from Angel. She worried about the black-haired vampire pointing a crossbow right at Angel's heart.

"Hey, asshole," she called. The vampire fighting Angel looked around, yellow eyes hard with anger.

"A human? You've got to be kidding. I can fight a human easy." He walked towards her, but as he reached her, he paused, sniffing the air in front of her. "Wait. You're not quite human, are you? What the hell are you?"

Faith grinned at him. "I'm Faith. I'm a Vampire Slayer. Who the hell are you?"

"He says he's called Damien," Angel said. "He's after Spike."

Damien's eyes widened. "A Slayer?" he said with a growl. "She's a Slayer?" He suddenly looked afraid for the first time that Faith had seen. Before he had seemed overconfident and arrogant, even facing Angel, but now he looked slightly cowed, if only for a moment. It was enough to distract him, and give Faith an opening.

Faith smiled, and quickly lashed out, kicking him in the solar plexus and then punching him in the face. Damien couldn't move fast enough to dodge her attacks, and although he managed to get a few hits in, Faith was mostly just beating him up. She almost felt sorry for the guy. Wait, no she didn't. She wanted to kill him. That wasn't the same thing at all.

"Emma!" he called. "Give me a hand!"

The blonde vampire, who Faith assumed was 'Emma', stood stock still.

"I can't fight a Slayer!" she cried. She was hiding, next to the apathetic brown-haired one. The other vampire, the only other male, rushed to help instead. He stood next to Damien, snarling at Faith like a rabid dog before advancing on her. Faith aimed a kick to his head, stunning him, then staked him in the heart, letting go of the stake. He crumbled to dust in seconds, the stake with him, and Damien was left staring at the ash-covered ground in stunned silence.

"No!" cried the blonde vampire. "Mikey!" she called out. Neither she nor the other female vampire came over. Looked like this Damien guy wasn't getting any help from his minions anymore. Faith smiled, and went to attack again, only just turning in time to avoid a wild punch of Damien's. He was pretty strong, but not a great fighter. Faith had far more experience and training as a Slayer than he did fighting Slayers. And it was two on one. The odds just weren't looking good for this guy at all, were they?

He seemed to sense that, and quickly turned away, trying to run outside. Faith tried to follow, but the blonde vampire leapt in front of her and snarled at her. Faith didn't have the stake anymore, but she could still stop this girl from hurting her. She was weaker than Damien—newly turned, Faith was guessing. She fought with the vampire for a moment, but then Damien reappeared and dragged her away. Faith went out to try and find them, but by the time she ran around the corner, she could see that they were both gone. Where they'd gone, she had no idea. Down to the sewers maybe. Seemed likely enough.

She sighed and walked back into the hotel. She'd been looking forward to killing some vampires, being bored as she was. But they'd got away. Eh, whatever. She didn't really have the energy to chase after them.

"What was all that about?" Faith asked Angel.

Angel shrugged. "Beats me. All I know is he's apparently after Spike, Drusilla and Samara."

"Wait, Drusilla's here? And who the hell is Samara? His new girlfriend or something?"

"Yes, Drusilla's here. And Samara most certainly isn't his girlfriend. She's a little girl. Spike and Dru are looking after her. I think they've pretty much adopted her now. Maybe they were fond of her, I don't know. But they're not here now. They went a bit further north, with Samara. I think they mostly wanted to get away from me. Or at least, Drusilla did."

"Huh. What's she still doing here?" Faith asked, looking over at the vampire who was still standing in the room. She looked almost like she wanted to sink into the wall behind her, but she hadn't left yet.

"Who are you?" Angel called to her.

"The name's Annie. I thought you might be able to help me."

* * *

Damien arrived back at the house only barely before dawn. His stupid minion was obviously anxious about the pale light starting to appear in the sky above them. He couldn't think why at all, it was ages until the sun would be strong enough to actually harm either of them, even a young vampire like Emma. He opened the door and walked inside, practically dragging her in. He closed the door and drew the bolts across - new ones; Damien didn't feel safe here anymore. It was hard to say why. But he was glad of it, knowing there was a Slayer here.

He looked over at Emma. She was a miserable sight. Her hair was tangled all across her face. Her face was stained with tears. Damien was disgusted by her.

"You disobeyed me," he said to her.

She looked down, avoiding his gaze, unwilling to challenge him. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean..."

"What didn't you mean?"

"I didn't mean to do anything wrong. I'm sorry. Give me another chance, I swear I'll do better."

"You think I should give you another chance? I don't think so. You failed me. All of you did. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I'd be better alone anyway."

"Are you telling me I have to leave?"

"You think I'm going to let you leave? After what you did? You shouldn't have refused to fight for me. You shouldn't have disobeyed me." Damien walked away, leaving Emma alone. She looked up at him, wide eyes fully of tears, but didn't try to follow. Damien returned a moment later, a stake in one hand and a knife in his other. Emma visibly tensed, her face frozen in terror, but she didn't even try to move. She was too frightened of him.

"You're going to kill me," she said, her voice shaking, but certain. She knew what he was going to do to her. Made sense, with him holding the stake already. But he wasn't going to kill her just yet. He put the stake down, and held the knife out in front of him, against Emma's face. She recoiled from it, closing her eyes, but she was sitting against the wall—there was nowhere else to go. The knife bit into her skin, drawing tiny drops of dead blood to the surface.

"Of course I am, Emma. You disobeyed me. You _betrayed_ me. You have to pay for that." He took the knife away from her face, and she breathed a sigh of relief when the pain ceased. He slashed at her with it, making a deep cut down her face, and she screamed.

"What are you doing!?" she yelled.

"I told you, Emma. You betrayed me. You must be punished."

"Why don't you just kill me?" she whispered. "What is this?"

"Killing you would be too fast. And not as fun." Damien smiled at her. She looked back at him with something like revulsion. What was her problem? She was a _vampire._ Why would she care if he tortured people? Just because it was her? He didn't get what she was trying to say at all.

He attacked her with the knife again. And again. And again. She screamed and cried every time. Eventually even Damien grew bored. He usually loved the sounds of screams, but what good was this doing? He wanted to kill Spike. That was all he wanted. How was torturing his own minion helping with that.

He grabbed Emma and threw down to the ground. She cried out and tried to wriggle away, but he was faster and stronger. He knelt, straddling her, the stake now in his hand.

"Please, don't," she whispered. "Please don't kill me."

Her face was covered with blood and tears and she was sobbing softly. Damien didn't care. He lifted the stake up high, and slammed it down into her heart. She gasped with the pain, and crumbled into dust. Damien got to his feet. He threw the bloodied stake down and picked up his knife again to clean it. He was glad to be rid of Emma. She'd never been useful to him anyway.

* * *

Author note: Hello. I updated again, as you can see. Sorry there was no Spike and Dru or Samara in this chapter, but they'll be back next time, promise. This part needed to happen. I'll try to update faster, if I can. Anyway, hope the chapter was enjoyable and see you next time.


	21. Chapter Twenty-One

**_The Ghost's Curse_**

 _Chapter Twenty-One_

* * *

Samara sat in her room, getting ready for school. She had dressed in a red dress Drusilla had bought for her a short while ago, and had packed her bag already. She felt nervous. It had been such a long time since she'd been to school, especially if she counted all that time she'd been dead. She couldn't tell how things would turn out. What if everyone hated her? What if she lost control of her powers and killed someone? It wasn't like that had never happened. And she didn't want to do that anymore. She wanted a second chance. She sighed, grabbing her bag, and walked downstairs.

Drusilla was already there, thankfully without Spike. Samara guessed he was still asleep. She was glad—she still wasn't too fond of him. She tolerated him, because Drusilla liked him, but she couldn't bring herself to actually like him. He just... annoyed her. She couldn't quite say why. Maybe it was just the bad memories she had of Richard Morgan, who had locked her in a barn to protect himself. Maybe she feared Spike would end up being the same. And he didn't seem to like her much, although he hadn't tried to lock her in a barn attic, so he wasn't that bad.

Drusilla was making breakfast. There were two saucepans full of porridge on the stove. One of them, Samara noticed, was a dark shade of red - Drusilla appeared to have used blood instead of milk. Gross. As she stirred the porridge, Drusilla sang something that sounded like a lullaby. Samara listened, entranced. Drusilla's singing wasn't especially good, but there was still something mesmerising about her voice. Perhaps it was just her powers.

Drusilla finished making the porridge and put it into three bowls. She set Samara's down in front of her, and walked upstairs. Samara ate her porridge slowly, feeling too nervous to be really hungry. Why was she scared of going to school? She wasn't afraid of Spike and Drusilla, and they were actually vampires. They were really dangerous. What was the worst that could happen to her at school? Trying to think about that brought all sorts of worst-case scenarios to her mind, so she stopped thinking, and kept eating the porridge. It wasn't very good. Drusilla had left it on too long, and it didn't have any sugar or honey, so it tasted bland.

A few minutes later, Drusilla came back downstairs, Spike following behind her. He wasn't wearing his coat. He wore that leather coat almost all the time and Samara hadn't seen him without it that often before, but he had worn it less since they'd been here. He looked really tired. When he saw the three bowls on the table he stopped.

"Um, Dru? You cooked breakfast?" he asked, a doubtful look on his face. "Are you sure that's a good idea? The last time I saw you use a stove, you put petrol in the saucepan and set the whole house on fire."

"Yes," Drusilla said, sitting down to her bowl. "I made it all by myself. I don't know why you're so surprised, my mind has been much clearer recently."

"You cooked something? Without burning the house down? Dru, that's wonderful!" Spike said, grinning. Drusilla smiled back. Samara gave them a strange look. He was pleased that Drusilla had simply not burnt the house down? Samara knew that Drusilla could be a bit detached from reality, but didn't realise she'd ever been that bad. Samara had tried to cook porridge once before and even she hadn't burnt the house down. She'd burnt the porridge, and the saucepan, but not the house.

Once the three of them had finished breakfast, Spike got up and walked for the door.

"You ready to go?" he asked Samara over his shoulder.

Samara shrugged. "I guess," she said.

The three of them walked outside. It was daylight already, but the front of the house was almost always shaded, so the two vampires had a clear path to the car. They got in, Spike in the driver's seat, Drusilla and Samara in the backseat. Samara stared out of the window, listening to Spike complain at driving too slowly. Drusilla wouldn't let him drive at 110mph on dirt roads with Samara in the car, and it annoyed him. As they first left their house, they saw only a few houses by the sides of the roads, but as they got nearer the school, the area became more built up.

They arrived at the elementary school after half an hour. It was only a small place, with about a hundred students. Samara was glad there weren't too many people here. Too many people would be bad. She wasn't too fond of people in the first place. All through her life, people had only caused her pain. But they didn't always. Anna hadn't hurt her, until Samara had completely lost control of her powers. Drusilla was still taking care of her. Maybe things wouldn't go so badly this time.

"Goodbye, sweet girl," Drusilla said. "We'll be here to take you home in a few hours, all right?" Drusilla hugged her.

"Goodbye Mommy," Samara said. Once Drusilla had let go of her, she got out of the car. She was slightly nervous here alone, but Spike and Drusilla couldn't come with her in the sun.

"See ya kid," Spike called as she walked. She waved without looking back. She kept her gaze on the ground as she walked, not looking at any of the other people. When she reached the open double doors of the school, she took a deep breath, and walked inside.

* * *

Annie was sitting down, a mug of pig's blood in her hand. She eyed it suspiciously, like it contained ground up cockroaches. She was used to human blood, only freshly dead and straight from the vein. She'd only taken a sip of this and already hated it. Angel and that Slayer were sitting opposite her. Annie couldn't remember her name, and didn't really care. Of course, she wasn't _the_ Slayer, since they were hundreds of them now, but she was a Slayer. Annie didn't like being near her. She wanted to run away, but she had nowhere else to run to.

"So let me get this straight," the Slayer said. "Damien turned you to be his minion, but you hated him, so you're coming to us for help?" She looked incredulous, even though everything Annie had said was true.

"That's pretty much it, yeah," Annie said.

"What makes you think well help you? We usually kill vamps, you know."

 _Well, duh, you're a Vampire Slayer, you'd be kinda useless if you didn't kill vampires,_ Annie thought. Somehow she didn't think the Slayer would take her saying that particularly well. "Yeah, I know," she said. "But I'm not really a danger. I've never actually killed anyone myself. Okay, so it's not like it was because I didn't want to, but I still don't exactly know what I'm missing out on. It's not like I got used to slaughtering every human I see. Seriously, just consider it. That's all I'm asking right now."

"Consider what?" Angel asked. "You haven't really told us what you want from us yet."

"Just, you know... somewhere safe to stay. I could help you, you know I could. Okay, so I'm not exactly going to be helping you out of the goodness of my heart, but I can help. If I'm helping you, does it really matter why I'm helping? Please, just think about it. I've got nowhere else to go."

"Why not back to your sire?" the Slayer asked.

Annie narrowed her eyes. She felt very much like diving straight at the Slayer and burying her fangs in her neck, but one of them would stake her before she even left her seat, so she stayed still. "Are you kidding? Anywhere but with him. I hate him. I wish he'd burn. I never wanted to be a vampire, but he didn't care. He turned me anyway. So now I'm stuck like this. No, I can't go back to him", she said.

"So you want us to give you shelter?" Angel asked her.

"Yes, that's all I want," Annie said.

"And you're willing to help us on cases return for your room and board?" Angel asked.

"Sure, whatever you want." Annie didn't care what they wanted her to do. If she had to kill her own kind, so be it. She just wanted somewhere to hide.

"And you know that if you do anything wrong, threaten me or my friends or clients in anyway, you'll be staked?"

Annie glared. "Fine. As long as you don't make me go back to Damien."

"Okay then," Angel said. Annie raised her eyebrows. He'd actually agreed, just like that? She'd thought that would be more difficult. Actually, she'd thought he'd stake her. But accepting her so easily took her her off guard. That had never happened, even when she was human. Anyone who had helped her had always wanted something. She didn't trust Angel at all. And it was clear she wasn't the only one who thought it was strange. His slayer friend was staring at him like he'd gone insane.

"Wait, you're actually going along with this? Angel, she's a vampire." the Slayer said.

"So am I."

"Yeah, but you have a soul. This chick doesn't. How'd you know she won't murder us in our sleep?" the Slayer demanded.

Angel looked straight at Annie when he said the next words, even though he was talking to the Slayer. "Because she knows what will happen if she tries," he said.

* * *

Samara was in her first class of the day, which was history. She had been given a brand new exercise book, and was allowed to write in pen. They were learning about the Victorians. They weren't learning anything in much detail, but it was still quite interesting. Samara thought it was funny because her parents were Victorians. She had told the teacher that. In response, she had laughed and said she was sure they weren't that old. Samara hadn't bothered to go on. If she said something like that once, people might think she was joking, but if she kept on, they might think there was something wrong with her. Samara didn't want them to think there was something wrong with her, not this time. She wanted to blend in with them, seem like a normal kid.

So she tried to pay attention, and wrote down the things she needed to, but she never put her hand up, and she never spoke to any other children. She was technically older than all of them were anyway. She may have been alive only eight years, but but she'd been dead a bit longer. Not that she'd really grown up that much as a ghost. Ghosts didn't grow up.

When break time came, she stayed alone in the playground. She sat singing to herself, trying to make daisy chains like Drusilla had taught her to. She heard a few kids whispering about her and silenced them with a look. She hoped they just shut up because her expression scared them. She really didn't want to deal with losing control of her powers again.

At the end of the day, Samara walked out of the school, looking around for Spike and Dru. She couldn't see them yet. Maybe they were running late. They wouldn't have forgotten about her, of course they wouldn't. How could they? The worry was getting to her. But she saw the car appear a while later, and felt relieved. They found a parking spot in the shade, and Drusilla got out to greet Samara.

She ran over to the car, barreling straight into Drusilla. If she hadn't been a vampire, she might have stumbled, but she didn't even lose balance. Drusilla stroked Samara's hair.

"Hello again, little darling. Did you have a good day?"

"It wasn't bad," Samara said. "Can we just go home now?"


	22. Chapter Twenty-Two

**_The Ghost's Curse_**

 _Chapter Twenty-Two_

* * *

Drusilla had left the house early, going to get a meal before Spike had even woken up. She wasn't worried about Samara. She didn't think she should be. If she got into enough trouble, she would wake Spike up, and Samara wasn't very likely to get into trouble anyway. She was a good little girl, at least when she was happy. She didn't want to bring Samara along here.

And she definitely didn't want to bring Spike with her. He didn't trust her, and he didn't believe that she could feed without killing. He thought she was still too unstable. He was wrong. She had been feeling so much better recently, so very much. She knew what was happening to her, and she knew where she was. She still saw things, still remembered things. But they didn't confuse or scare her as much, and she didn't panic so much. It was nice. She didn't know why this had happened, except that it was connected to Samara. But she liked it. Knowing where she was properly was quite pleasing.

The streets in the town were dark now already. A thin mist had settled over the landscape, and it glowed in the light of the streetlights. Most people had gone home already, but there were some still around. Victims. But then, they weren't really. Drusilla wasn't going to hurt them really, just take a little of their blood. Why should that matter? They could spare a pint, it wouldn't kill them. Could weaken them, but that wasn't her problem. If they got hurt again that was their own fault.

She looked through the streets, spying potential victims. A lot of them weren't quite right. Drusilla preferred to feed from children, but she couldn't do that without killing. They were so small, had so little blood in them. If she tried to feed from them they'd be gone so soon. She saw one person who looked good enough. A woman, young enough to taste good, but big enough that she had enough blood to lose. She was leaning against a wall and smoking a cigarette. Drusilla walked up to her. The woman noticed her quickly, reacting to her presence with narrowed eyes.

"What do you want?" the woman demanded. Her voice was rough, like sandpaper. It hurt Drusilla's ears.

Drusilla smiled. She moved closer, and snatched the cigarette between her fingers, crushing it so the fire went out. It hurt her fingers so wonderfully, like a tiny ghost of the sun. The woman looked at her with wide eyes, her body visibly tensing. Drusilla knew that look—the woman was afraid. But Drusilla didn't know why. She wasn't doing anything strange, was she? She was just making sure she didn't catch on fire. That would be awful. And the woman shouldn't have it anyway; she'd heard those things could kill people. Just like Drusilla could. She lifted her fingers to her eyes, seeing the damage. The skin was red and blistered for a moment, then it began to heal before her eyes.

"What the hell?" the woman said. She'd gone from wide-eyed staring back to glaring, her momentary panic replaced by anger. Trying to make herself feel stronger than she was. "What are you? What do you want? I don't have any money, so—"

"Don't want your money," Drusilla said. She gazed into the woman's eyes, swaying her head slightly. "Be in my eyes, be in me."

As she looked, the woman's expression slowly became glazed over as she fell into a trance. Hypnotised, she stood still as Drusilla lifted her arm, rolling back the sleeve to expose pale skin laced with blue veins. Drusilla drew her nails across the skin, opening the vein so that blood dripped out. She lowered her mouth to the wound, drinking the blood, lapping it like a cat, but not biting. Biting would cause too much harm, and it would be too hard to stop herself from taking too much. The blood flowed slowly and steadily into her mouth, the woman's pulse calm.

But as she tasted the blood, Drusilla noticed how hungry she really was. Not consciously, but instinctively. Her body reacted, her mind lost for a moment, and she bit down, sucking the blood. The woman didn't move, or try to get away. She didn't react at all, still hypnotised by Drusilla. But her body still reacted to what was going on, even if her mind had temporarily forgotten how. Her heart beat faster, the blood rushing through her veins in her fear. Drusilla could even hear it in her breath, coming fast and uneven. It made her taste so good. She wanted to get away, but Drusilla wouldn't let her. She needed this, needed to feed, to bite, to... kill.

Suddenly, she realised what she was doing. She slowly lifted her head. She'd had enough now. She didn't feel like she had, but she knew it to be true. It should be true. She'd taken far too much, over two pints. She hadn't meant to do that. When was the last time she'd fed? It occurred to her that she didn't remember. She'd been distracted recently, by Spike and Samara, by moving. By everything. She shouldn't have let that happen. How had she let that happen? Her mind had been getting so much clearer, and she'd been doing so much better, but she'd slipped. Lost her hold on what was happening, not much, not for long, but enough to ruin so much.

She dropped the woman's body to the ground of a sudden, startled by her realisation. The woman stirred, her trance breaking as Drusilla lost her hold on her in her panic. The blood was running down her arm in rivulets from the gash Drusilla had inflicted with her fangs. Muscle showed through at the bite, which had gone far too deep. Drusilla looked at her in shock. She hadn't meant to do that. She'd only meant to take a little... But this wasn't a little. Although the woman was still awake, she wouldn't be for long. Her skin was white, her eyes empty, glazed over and barely open. What blood Drusilla hadn't taken was quickly spilling out, staining her skin, her clothes. Everything was red. How could she bleed so much? Drusilla must have bit into the artery.

She looked around for something to help. She couldn't have let this happen. She'd tried so hard not to... so hard. She'd tried not to kill. Spike had been able to do this, before he'd got his soul. So why couldn't she? She had tried to be better, like Spike did, like Samara was trying. But the dying woman before her showed her how futile her attempt had been.

"Don't mock me!" Drusilla hissed at her. The woman gazed back at her with vacant eyes, unable to speak, just like a doll. Perhaps she should be blindfolded like Miss Edith, so Drusilla wouldn't have to see those empty eyes staring up at her. Was she dead already? It was hard for Drusilla to tell. She didn't want to get close enough. She needed help, needed someone there, but she was alone out here. Why had she gone out alone? She didn't like to be alone. She whimpered, and slumped down beside the body.

* * *

A little while after Drusilla had left, Spike had followed her in the car, staying far behind so she wouldn't notice him. He'd wanted to know if she'd been telling the truth about what she'd said before. That she had still been feeding on humans, but hadn't killed anyone. He wanted to believe her, but wasn't sure he could. It could be pretty hard to feed from a person, taking human blood straight from the vein, and not drain them. He'd taken Samara with him, not wanting to leave at home. Well, he did want to leave her, because an eight year old kid wasn't useful when it came to spying on vampires, but he didn't think leaving her was a good idea. Samara might seem mature for her age sometimes, but she was still an eight year old, no matter what she'd seen or done.

Spike left the car parked a little way away, leaving Samara there. He wouldn't be far, and he doubted someone would steal the car with her in it. He doubted she'd let them. He walked off, trying to find Drusilla. He knew she was nearby. He had her scent. What he'd expected when he found her was to stalk for for a bit, watch her to make sure she was telling the truth. He'd thought she was. He'd expected to see her corner a human, expected to see her feed, even somewhat expected, though hoped not, to see her kill. But what he hadn't expected was to see her crying next to an only half-drained victim.

A woman lay on the pavement, glazed eyes staring at nothing. Her arm had been torn into, the skin and flesh both ripped apart. How hungry had Drusilla been? There was blood all over the street, surrounding the body. And it _was_ a body. There was nothing alive about it. Even the blood staining the white skin and ragged pink shirt was sticky and congealing, growing cold. He could tell without even coming any closer. Vampires had a pretty good sense for things to do with blood.

Drusilla knelt beside the body, sobbing. Her back was turned to him, so Spike could see her face. "Dru?" he said, coming closer. He put a hand on her shoulder. "Dru, you okay?"

"I killed her," she gasped out. She turned to him. She looked half-wild, hair falling into her face, make-up running and leaving dark tracks from her tears. Blood covered her lips, making them look dry and chapped as it had dried. "I didn't mean to do that. Why did I do that? She won't wake up. Make her wake up, Spike. Fix her!"

Spike looked down at the dead woman. He touched her face, and felt no warmth. She was as cold as they were. "Dru, she's cool. She's been dead for a while. There's nothing we can do. There's nothing anyone can do."

Drusilla looked at him with wide, puppy-dog eyes, as if she was a child who had been denied a treat. But Drusilla wasn't a child, she was a century-old vampire. And why would a human staying alive be a treat to her?

"You're supposed to save people," she whispered. "You and Angel. You're supposed to be good. Why can't you help her?"

"It's too late. She's already dead. What do you want me to do, resurrect her?" Spike asked. He wasn't trying to sound harsh, but it was true. There was nothing they could do to save this one.

The look on Drusilla's face made him suspect that resurrecting her was exactly what she wanted him to do. "I ruined it. I made everything all wrong all over again. Oh, Spike. It hurts. Everything hurts. Like worms burrowing into my lungs. I think I did something wrong. What did I do?"

How could she not know? She was upset, but even she didn't know why. Spike looked down at the dead woman, covered in blood. He was reminded, bizarrely, of that man he'd stabbed, just after he'd got his soul. But that wasn't anything alike. He'd been a demon at the time Spike had attacked him, and Spike didn't even think that guy had died. And he'd had a soul, even then—Drusilla didn't. That was why she didn't understand. But not just that. What she'd been through, what Angelus had done to her... her mind would never be completely clear. She'd always be confused. Spike knew this. He'd taken care of her the best he could for a hundred years when she had needed it, though he hadn't always been sure how to. She'd been getting better, but he wasn't sure she was better now. Now she'd gone back, just a little.

Spike reached for her and put his arms around her. She stiffened for a moment and then clung to him like she was drowning. "Shh, Dru. It's okay. You didn't do anything wrong. You couldn't have known."

"Don't say that!" Drusilla cried, shrill voice piercing his eardrums. "You don't know it will be okay. And I could have known. I could have stopped. But I didn't."

"You might have stopped, if you known you should. But you didn't know that, did you? It wasn't something you could help." Spike said. Drusilla didn't seem to find his words comforting, so he just held her, wiping away her tears. "Come on," he said, after a while. Let's get you home."

Drusilla still clung onto him as they walked back to the car. They kept to the shadows, though no one seemed to look too hard at them anyway. If someone caught sight of Dru all covered in blood like this, they'd probably call the cops, and that would not be good for them.

They got back to the car. Spike opened the door for Dru to walk into the passenger seat, while he sat in the drivers side. He started the car, and turned to Dru. She wasn't looking at him. She was staring outside the window into the towns streets as they slowly gave way to forest, as if the trees held secrets only she knew. Perhaps they did. Spike couldn't tell if she'd noticed Samara in the backseat or not, or if she was wondering why the car was even there, why he'd followed her. Samara looked at Drusilla in her distressed state, then glared at Spike.

"What did you do?" she asked. "Did you hurt her? If you hurt her, I'll kill you."

Spike wasn't a stranger to death threats, but a threat like that, said in such an offhand manner, coming from an eight-year-old, made a shiver run down his spine. "I didn't hurt her," he said. "This was... just something that happened."


	23. Chapter Twenty-Three

**_The Ghost's Curse_**

 _Chapter Twenty-Three_

* * *

Drusilla was still sad when Samara got up. She didn't know why, or what was happening. She knew this time it wasn't her fault, but it seemed so much like how Anna had been before... before she'd killed her. She hoped Drusilla wouldn't try to do that. She didn't want to be let go again. She didn't want to be abandoned. She wanted to live. She was finally getting a chance now, and to have it taken away...

Spike put her breakfast down in front of her. She looked at it for a minute, then tasted it slowly, wondering if Spike had put something in it like Rachel had with the sandwiches. Everyone was acting so strangely recently, Samara didn't know if she could trust them. She wanted to. She wanted them to be a family, a good, happy family. Maybe that was too much to ask when two of the family were vampires and one had barely controllable powers.

"What's wrong with Mommy?" Samara asked between mouthfuls of food.

Spike looked at her. His eyes looked... tired. More than that, but Samara couldn't say what else was in them. The only thing that really came to mind was tired. His hair was curlier than usual too. "She's okay," he said. "More or less."

"What does that mean? Will she hurt me?" If someone wasn't okay, it usually meant they were going to hurt her. Everyone had always ended up hurting her eventually. She wanted this time to be different so much, but she wasn't sure if it even could be.

"No... I don't think so. You're probably the only person she wouldn't hurt right about now. But... I wouldn't go to see her. Just in case."

Samara looked down. She didn't want to hear something like that. "Can I stay home today?"

"Nah. Go to school, see how it goes. You'll be all right. Dru'll be fine, you don't need to worry about her. She's been through worse."

"I know what she's been through. It doesn't say much that it was worse."

That gave Spike a moment of pause. "What do you mean you know?"

"She told me. Not everything, but I know most of it. I know Angel hurt her, so she'd be hurting forever. I know he killed her family. She wouldn't tell me that much though. I don't think she wanted to talk about it much. Why did you ask?"

Spike shrugged. "Well, suppose it doesn't sound much like something you'd tell a kid."

Once Samara finished her food, she grabbed her bag and they left.

The drive to school was tense without Drusilla there. It was her who Samara liked best. Spike was just a side-effect. But he didn't seem to completely hate her, so maybe she wasn't being very fair. He could even be nice to her sometimes. At least he didn't treat her like an evil thing who shouldn't exist. Not completely, at least. She tried to remember that so she wouldn't kill him when he was spending too much time with Drusilla.

She said goodbye to Spike as she left the car and walked into the school. Spike stayed in the car, as usual, unable to go into the sun. She had a little trouble concentrating during school, but she was more or less fine until the teacher got them to work in groups and then left for a while. It wasn't long, but it was long enough for Samara to start getting annoyed. She didn't like this. She didn't like being around so many other people. She just wanted to kill them all, but that wasn't an option for her anymore. It shouldn't be, anyway. She couldn't always solve her problems with killing people.

But the other kids didn't like her. She knew it. They were being too noisy, and she thought they were doing it to hurt her. That was ridiculous of course, but Samara didn't really think of that. She just thought of how annoying they all were, and how much she wanted to just kill them all.

* * *

Spike drove back to the house, alone again. Not that Samara was much company; the kid wasn't exactly chatty. He put some music on, but it didn't help a whole lot. Noise just made everything worse. So he drove in silence, the only noise the roar of the engine, going about a hundred miles an hour. Luckily he didn't see any other cars. Who knew how he would have avoided crashing into them if he did? He didn't want to hurt himself, just wanted to get home as fast as humanly possible.

He had to get home to Dru. Had to see if could help her, find out what was really wrong. She'd freaked out about killing someone, but why, when she didn't have a soul? Was Angel right? Spike really didn't want him to be, just on general principle, because it was Angel. But also because he wanted to believe that Drusilla didn't have to be just a killer.

He got to the house. He parked the car outside and ran up to the house, managing to get in before being singed by the single second of sunlight exposure. He locked the door behind him, though he didn't know why. No one knew where they were apart from Angel.

"Spike..."

Spike turned. Drusilla sat at the bottom of the stairs, sprawled out with her head resting on a step. She looked like a ghost, her white nightgown a shroud. She looked like Samara had before they'd brought her back.

"Dru. You been all right?" Spike mentally kicked himself. That was a pathetic way to open a conversation. Last night she'd been having panic attacks and hallucinations, and now he asked if she'd been all right. What was he expecting the answer to be?

"I've been dreaming," she said. "Where's Samara? I want to see her."

"Gone off to school. It's just us now."

"Oh," Drusilla said. "Maybe that's good. That means I won't hurt her."

"Why would you hurt her?" Spike asked. He moved to sit beside her, but she wouldn't move, so he stayed standing. "You don't want to hurt Samara, you love her."

"But sometimes that makes us hurt them all the more." She looked up, meeting his eyes with her steady gaze. "Did you forget? Sometimes love can make us hurt them all the more. You remember, don't you? What you tried to do to the Slayer? You loved her, but you tried to hurt her. Angelus hurt me, and Buffy. We always hurt them."

Spike wasn't sure whether she meant people in general, vampires in general or just them specifically. Probably didn't matter a lot, since it'd be true whatever way. He definitely remembered what he'd done to Buffy, or tried to do.

"Guess that's right," he said, unable to think of any way to contradict her.

"And not wanting to hurt someone doesn't mean you won't. Samara never wanted to hurt anyone, until she was hurt too badly. I never wanted to hurt anyone until... until I was hurt. I didn't even want to hurt that girl, last night. Not really. All I meant was to get what I needed. I hadn't made a mistake before, I had no reason to think differently. But something was different. It wasn't the same. I made a mistake..."

Was that it? Just a mistake, a one time thing? Or was this a bigger problem? Spike reached to hold her hand, tried his best to comfort her. She pulled him into her arms, her body close against his.

"I don't want this," she said. "I don't want to hurt everything all the time. I want to help, I want to make things better. But I just don't know how."

And that was right, wasn't it? Whatever she wanted, she couldn't do this. Even he couldn't have, not properly. He'd decided to be good before he'd got his soul, tried to help, even if at first it was just for Buffy. But it hadn't helped. He'd still hurt her. Drusilla had killed someone, someone she didn't even care about, and the mistake she'd made still hurt her. At least she, unlike him, hadn't hurt anyone she actually cared about. If it had been Samara...

Drusilla couldn't be good without a soul. She could try, like Spike could. They had that. But they couldn't do well at it. There would be more mistakes. She pulled back from him slightly, and the way her dewy eyes looked into his showed him that she knew the same.

* * *

Samara left the school feeling a little better, but not much. She wanted to go home. She didn't know when the farm house she lived in with Spike and Drusilla had become her home, but it had. It was more a home than Morgan Ranch had been. Of course, she'd been living in a barn there, so it made sense that she already preferred her new home. She'd thought it would be harder to adjust than it had been. Drusilla was helping her a lot. Spike wasn't hurting her. And Drusilla liked him, so Samara didn't mind him. It wasn't as bad as before. But she couldn't help thinking that everything could be better.

She got to the car and saw something that made her heart sink. Drusilla still wasn't there. Spike sat alone in the car.

"Where's Mommy?" she demanded.

"She's at home. She's... still not feeling so great."

"Is she okay?"

Spike hesitated before replying. "Um, she's... No, not really okay. She's pretty stressed out. But she'll get better. You can trust that."

"When will she be better?"

"I honestly don't know. Maybe soon. Maybe... less soon."

"I want her to get better."

"Of course you do." Spike looked at Samara, raising an eyebrow at her. "How long you planning on standing there, kid? Want to come home sometime soon?"

Samara stepped into the car. She didn't want to be here with only Spike. She wanted Drusilla. She wanted Mommy. She didn't like Spike. But she got into the car anyway. It wasn't like she could walk all the way home. As they got ready to drive away, Samara thought she saw someone familiar standing in the shadow of the building. With lank black hair and grey eyes. She grabbed Spike's shoulder, and nodded towards the person. It was definitely him. Damien.

Spike got out of the car. "What are you doing here?"

Samara had expected Damien to threaten, to attack. He just stood there, smirking slightly. Samara knew that Spike couldn't get to him. Though they both stood in shadow, sunlight separated them. Neither of them could go into it. Of course, that also meant Damien couldn't get to them, which was somewhat comforting. But it didn't make him go away. Samara wondered why he was here, and how long he had been here.

"Is that little girl with you?" Damien demanded.

"What's that to you?" Spike said. Samara peered out of the window, staring right into Damien's eyes. He noticed her and his eyes widened in fear, but he couldn't look away. He'd been saying that like he wanted Samara to be there, but once he saw her, it seemed that he didn't want to see her so much. But then he looked away, and smiled.

"I'll be back," he said, disappearing into the shadows again. Samara didn't like the thought of him being at her school. It made her feel bad, like she was cold. Was that anger? No, it was something different. Samara had felt anger so much for so long, she was completely numb to it.

"Get back in the car, Samara," Spike said.

Samara didn't need him to tell her. She was already heading back to the car. She sat in the front passenger seat, next to Spike. She didn't want to be alone. Spike got in the car, not commenting about her change in seat. He started the car, and they drove home. Suddenly, Samara wasn't quite so sure she wanted to go back. Not if she'd be just as alone.


	24. Chapter Twenty-Four

**_The Ghost's Curse_**

 _Chapter Twenty-Four_

* * *

Drusilla had waited for them to return. She knew she shouldn't be with Samara right now, but seeing her, knowing she was all right, was good enough for now. She heard Spike muttering swear words as he walked up the stairs. At first she didn't listen properly, just hearing pointless chatter that held no meaning to her. But even in her distraction, she caught a few words, and they were enough to worry her. Damien... She remembered him. The one who had been after Spike. He'd found then, hadn't he?

Spike walked in, and Drusilla immediately rushed to him, asking what had happened. "What happened? How's Samara?"

"Samara's fine. Nothing happened. Not much. Just saw the bastard standing around really. But I don't like that he's here. He doesn't just want to kill me, he's after her now too. She scares him, and it makes him mad. He doesn't like being scared of a kid. Doesn't like being scared at all. Likes controlling everything. Reminds me of Angelus that way."

"You don't worry?" she asked. She did. She had a family again, after so many years alone. She couldn't lose them. If she saw Damien again, she would kill him.

"A bit. Not a lot. More worried about you than anything."

"I'm all right," she said. "Haven't eaten anyone today," she added, thinking that Spike might be pleased about that.

"That's a start," Spike said. He didn't seem as pleased as Drusilla had hoped. He was still worried. She wanted to stop him being worried. Once she'd have known how. She'd have given him someone to eat, or given him some information on where to find another Slayer for him to kill. But she knew that none of these things would work now.

"What happened the other night," Spike started. Drusilla expected him to ask why it had happened, or tell her he was disappointed in her. That seemed like something a person with a soul might say. But that wasn't what Spike asked. "That hadn't happened for a while until then? Why was that?"

"I don't know what you mean," she said.

"You'd been feeding on humans all this time, and all this time you hadn't been killing them. Why was that?"

"It would be a bad idea. You'd be disappointed. You or Angel would probably stake me."

"I'd never stake you," Spike said, his voice quiet and low, almost like a purr. She knew from his eyes that it was true. He couldn't hurt her. No matter what happened. "You know that, don't you?"

"Yeah," Drusilla said. "I know."

"When did you get so logical, anyway? You never would have said something like that before. You would have been talking in metaphors if you made any sense at all."

"I've been seeing things a lot clearer," Drusilla said. "Which is to say, I haven't. Been seeing. Not as much at least. And when I do, I realise what it is, if not what it means. I've been getting better since I met Samara."

"When did that happen anyway? How did you find out about her? I know you didn't watch the tape, because you complained when I saw it."

"It was earlier than that, before I came to you. I don't know when exactly it happened."

"Just tell me what happened."

"I'll tell you what happened," Dru said. "I don't know what it will mean to you. I don't know what it meant for me . But it's all I can do."

"I'll listen. Just tell me."

"I was on my own for a long time. After Darla left me, after I left you again. I didn't like that time at all. I found a few kids one day, all talking about a tape that was killing them. I killed them myself, since I was a bit peckish. But then I started seeing her. The girl who'd tormented them, she was haunting me as well now. But she wasn't killing me. I fascinated her, I think. She knew we shared something, knew we were alike. That drew her to me. Most others would go mad hearing her voice whispering to them all the time, to have her show them things. But for me, it was a blessing. At least I knew who she was. At least I knew that she was real.

"She showed me things. Her life. What had happened to her, how she'd got revenge. And how she'd tried to escape. She didn't want this. Didn't want to be stuck in the cycle. So I said I'd help her. I came to you and Angel, because that's what you do. You help people. Isn't that right?"

Spike nodded. "We try our best."

"But sometimes she made me better, and sometimes she made me even worse again. I woke up one evening covered in water, like I'd been lying in a lake, with my dress torn and my leg horribly hurt. I would have thought it looked quite pretty on someone else, that wound. For me it was just painful. I think that was Samara. I don't know how exactly. Perhaps she made me walk to a pond, or a river, and I cut myself on rocks. Perhaps it was just a thought that came to me while I saw her, as a way I could feel closer to her. I might have thought the lake was like the well.

"That mostly stopped happening after a while. At first I didn't know what to do at all. I wandered, trying to find a way to help her. But she'd been gone for so long... "

"So you came to us," Spike said. Drusilla nodded.

"I thought you would help her, and you did. I wanted to join her, to prove I could be good as well. But... it didn't work. As you found out. It was going well for a while. And then it stopped going well. I thought it ws possible for me to be good without a soul. But now I think that it might not be."

"What does that mean?" Spike asked. "You gonna stop trying? Or do you mean you want one now?"

Slowly, Drusilla nodded. "If that's what I need. If that's what it takes."

"Are you sure that's a good idea, Dru?"

"What do you mean? I though you'd be pleased. You were worried about me making mistakes. That might stop me."

"I know... but I'm worried about you as well. You sure you can handle it, Dru? When I first got my own soul , I was insane in a basement for about a month. You already have trouble."

"I think I could be all right. And besides. It doesn't have to be now. I can wait. A little while. It's something big to decide, and how will we do it? Angel had a curse. You endured trials. What must happen to me? No. Not yet. But I've thought about it. I'm thinking about it. It might be a good idea."

She could tell he didn't think it was a good idea. His brow had a strange crinkle to it. He had never had that much before. But being soulless was like that, she supposed.

* * *

Damien's new lair was worse than the last one. He found himself wishing he still had the old house, even as rotten and derelict as it had been. At least it had a bed. Beds were pretty nice, especially when they were soft and clean and covered in blankets. Not that any of his had fit that description for a while. All he had here was an old blanket. Was this what it had been like for those others, the minions he'd kept in his basement? He couldn't remember their names now. No. Annie. He remembered one of them was called Annie. She was the one who left. The others both died.

He stopped walking. What was that? He could hear static, like an old television. There were no TVs down here, this was the sewers. Even Damien didn't think it was a good idea to bring a TV down here. But still he heard the sound. He shifted his face, looking at the sewer with demons eyes. It didn't make him feel much braver, but it was good enough. It did something. He wasn't sure why he was afraid of the sound of static, but he was. He could feel it, something bad. Some old instinct commanding him to go back, to run as far as he could. A strange instinct for a vampire to have.

He turned the corner. Another sound joined with the static, and they intertwined together, weaving a strange song. Water. Water dripping, flowing. That wasn't an unusual sound here really. What was more unusual was the source of it. Damien had reached his lair. It was an empty room, perhaps once some kind of store room for people working down here in the tunnels. The door was closed, and water was rushing out from under it. When Damien tried to open it, it appeared to be locked. From the inside.

He kicked the door and it didn't budge. He screamed curses at it. But then, somehow, it was open. Not unlocked, not even ajar. The door was wide open, as if had been the whole time. Damien walked inside and it slammed shut behind him. But he barely even noticed that. No. What he noticed was the girl standing in his lair, as if the place belonged to her.

Damien almost didn't recognise her. She didn't look like she usually did, with shiny brown hair. She was dripping wet, barefoot, her hair falling into her face. Her skin was deathly white, and her eyes stared out, unfocused, with a grey film over them. But he did recognise her, once he got over the initial shock of seeing her there. It was that girl who Spike and Drusilla had taken in. The one who had showed him those horrible things. Samara.

Was this another one of her mind games? Was she going to hurt him even more? Was she even really here, or was that a trick too? Damien didn't know, but he also didn't care much right now. Pure, demonic instinct was fueling him, telling him what to do. He couldn't do anything but follow. He attacked the girl, throwing a punch right into her face.

She was gone before it hit. Dissapearing, as if into the air. Maybe she hadn't really been there. The television behind her— _what television, where had that thing come from?—_ was starting to play something. The static on the screen faded, and was replaced by a black screen with a ring of blue-ish light. A series of other clips began to flick across the screen. It was all black and white, tainted by static. Damien tried to stop watching. He really tried. He broke the screen, he unplugged the television, he closed his eyes. None worked. It was like she was playing it directly into his brain.

It finished, finally, and her voice rang in his mind: Seven days.

* * *

Author's note: Another chapter. Well on my way to finishing this, which is a little surprising. Only three more chapters to go now. Might be rushing through this a bit now, but I really want to get it finished. I hardly ever finish things, so I'm pretty bad at endings.


End file.
